Navtej Singh Sarna (born 1957) is an Indian author-columnist, diplomat and former

Indian Ambassador to the United States The Indian Ambassador to the United States of America is the chief diplomatic representative of India to the United States, housed in the Embassy of India, Washington, D.C. The current ambassador is Taranjit Singh Sandhu who succeeded Harsh Vard ...

. He previously served as the

High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom The High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom is the head of the High Commission of India to the United Kingdom. The High Commission is located at India House, London, India House in London. History In 1919, a committee chaired by the M ...

, and the Ambassador to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

.Navtej Sarna, envoy to Israel
''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'', 30 March 2008.

Early life and career

He was born in

Jalandhar Jalandhar is the third most-populous city in the Indian state of Punjab and the largest city in Doaba region. Jalandhar lies alongside the Grand Trunk Road and is a well-connected rail and road junction. Jalandhar is northwest of the state ...

East Punjab East Punjab (known simply as Punjab from 1950) was a province and later a state of India from 1947 until 1966, consisting of the parts of the Punjab Province of British India that went to India following the partition of the province between ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to noted writer in Punjabi,

Mohinder Singh Sarna Mohinder Singh Sarna (1923, Rawalpindi, British India - 2001) was an Indian civil servant and novelist who wrote in Punjabi. He won the 1994 Sahitya Akademi Award for his short story collection ''Nawen Yug De Waris''. He served as an officer o ...

and Punjabi poetess and translator Surjit Sarna, and did his schooling from St. Joseph's Academy, Dehradun. Later he joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1980. He was the longest-serving spokesperson of the Indian Foreign Ministry (six years), under two prime ministers, three foreign ministers and four foreign secretaries, till the end of his term in September, 2008. Previously as a diplomat served in Moscow, Warsaw, Thimphu, Geneva, Teheran and Washington, DC. He Served as India's ambassador to Israel from 2008 to 2012, High Commissioner to the UK 2016 and as India's ambassador to the United States from November 2016 to December 2018 and retired from the

Indian Foreign Service The Indian Foreign Service (IFS) is the diplomatic service and a central civil service of the Government of India under the Ministry of External Affairs. The Foreign Secretary is the head of the service. Vinay Mohan Kwatra is the 34th and the ...

on Dec 31, 2018 after serving his country for over 36 years.

Writing career

Navtej Sarna's first novel published was ''We Weren't Lovers Like That'' in 2003,Diplomat into novelist
''

'', 4 January 2004. followed by'' The Book of Nanak'' was published in the same year.'The Exile' published in 2008, is a novel based on the life of

Duleep Singh Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, GCSI (4 September 1838 – 22 October 1893), or Sir Dalip Singh, and later in life nicknamed the "Black Prince of Perthshire", was the last ''Maharaja'' of the Sikh Empire. He was Maharaja Ranjit Singh's youngest son ...

, the last Maharaja of the

Sikh Empire The Sikh Empire was a state originating in the Indian subcontinent, formed under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who established an empire based in the Punjab. The empire existed from 1799, when Maharaja Ranjit Singh captured Lahor ...

, and son of Maharaja

Ranjit Singh Ranjit Singh (13 November 1780 – 27 June 1839), popularly known as Sher-e-Punjab or "Lion of Punjab", was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, which ruled the northwest Indian subcontinent in the early half of the 19th century. He s ...

. His short stories which have appeared earlier in the London Magazine and broadcast over BBC have been put together in the collection 'Winter Evenings.' He translated the 'Zafarnama', the letter written in Persian verse by Guru Gobind Singh to emperor Aurungzeb. 'Savage Harvest' is Sarna's translation of thirty of his father's short stories on partition of India from Punjabi to English. Sarna has also contributed extensively to journals and newspapers in India and abroad including The Financial Times, Times Literary Supplement, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, etc. His literary columns written over seven years for The Hindu have now appeared as a book entitled 'Second Thoughts on Books, Authors and the Writerly Life.' In 2022, he wrote Crimson Spring, on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. He appeared o
The Literary City
with

Ramjee Chandran Ramjee Chandran is a journalist and author. Chandran has been the Editor of Explocity a fortnightly magazine since 1998. According to The Daily Telegraph, ''Explocity'' is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch. He is also the host of the podcastThe Lit ...

podcast to talk about his book.

Personal life

Ambassador Sarna speaks English, Hindi, Punjabi and has knowledge of Russian and Polish languages also. He is married to Dr. Avina Sarna and has one son and one daughter.

Publications

* ''Folk Tales of Poland'', Sterling Publications, 1991. . * ''We Weren't Lovers Like That''. Penguin, May 2003. . * ''The Book of Nanak'', Penguin, September 2003. .Navtej Sarna

Penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

. * ''The Exile''. Penguin, 2008. . * 'Zafarnama'- a translation, Penguin 2011 * 'Winter Evenings'- a collection of short stories, Rupa Rainlight 2012 * 'Savage Harvest'- a translation of partition stories of Mohinder Singh Sarna, Rupa 2013. * 'Indians at Herod's Gate'- a Jerusalem narrative, Rupa Rainlight 2014. * 'Second Thoughts- on books, authors and the writerly life'- HarperCollins 2015

Within anthologies

* ''Journeys : Heroes, Pilgrims, Explores'', edited by Geeti Sen and Molly Kaushal. New Delhi, Penguin, 2004. . ''2. And the Baba went along the way, by Navtej Sarna''. * ''The Harper Collins Book of New Indian Fiction : Contemporary Writing in English'', edited by

Khushwant Singh Khushwant Singh (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write ''Train to Pakistan'' in 1956 (made ...

. New Delhi, HarperCollins, 2005, . . ''5. Madame Kitty by Navtej Sarna''. * 'Signals', a London Magazine anthology, UK

References

External links

Biography - Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sarna, Navtej 1957 births Living people Punjabi people Indian Sikhs Ambassadors of India to Israel High Commissioners of India to the United Kingdom Ambassadors of India to the United States Indian Foreign Service officers Indian columnists Punjabi-language writers Indian historical novelists 20th-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian short story writers People from Jalandhar Novelists from Punjab, India