Sukhbir (writer)

Sukhbir (writer) Biography

Sukhbir was an accomplished writer associated with Punjabi literature, who was known as a poet, short story writer, novelist and essayist. In a literal career spanning to 5 decades, he has published 7 novels, 11 short story collections and 5 poetry collections, apart from many essays and translation works. He has also reviewed many literal works. He was greatly influenced by the philosophy of Gautama Buddha and Portuguese philosopher Baruch Spinoza and was a pioneer of stream-of-consciousness writing in Punjabi. He passed away on 22 February 2012 after a severe cardiac arrest aged 86. Raat da Chehra and Sarkaan te Kamre are his famous novels. The short story - Ruki Hoi Raat and the poetry work Nain Naksh made him a popular writer.

Sukhbir’s real name is Balbir Singh. He was born on 9 July 1925 to S. Mansha Singh and Shiv Kaur in Mumbai and was the eldest of 7 siblings. His father was a civil engineer in Indian Railways. Since his father worked with railways, his education was completed at various places across north India. His schooling was completed at Mumbai and college days at Amritsar. He adopted the pen name Sukhbir after partition. Since college days he was known as a budding writer among friends. As a writer, he started publishing with a Punjabi journal Preet Lari.

He was attracted for a short while towards leftist ideas though it didn’t last long. He was influenced by Puran Chand Joshi in those days. Sukhbir has worked as a college lecturer and advertisement-writer and many other jobs before taking writing as full-time profession. Sukhbir's first short story collection Dubda-Charda Suraj was published in 1957. His first novel Kach Da Shehar was published in 1960. Apart from publishing works, he also wrote for magazines, journals etc and contributed 50 years to literal career.

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Updated: January 28, 2016