Novels, short stories, travel, literary essays and translations
Navtej Sarna is the author of the novels The Exile and We Weren’t Lovers Like That and the short story collection Winter Evenings.His non-fiction works include The Book of Nanak, Second Thoughts and Indians at Herod’s Gate, as well as two translations, Zafarnama and Savage Harvest. As a professional diplomat he has served as High Commissioner of India to the UK, Ambassador of India to Israel and, most recently, as India’s Ambassador to the United States.
Mr Sharna is a well-read and well-travelled author who worked in different countries as a bureaucrat representing India. We weren’t lovers like that is the first novel he wrote in his early 20s. After 18 years of publishing, discussing his first novel took him down memory lane. The novel, according to Mr Sharma, portrays an introspective train journey from Delhi to Dehradun by the protagonist. The protagonist, who starts in a somewhat negative frame of mind, finds hope during this train journey. The cities Delhi, Mumbai, Dehradun are discussed in detail, and the author takes a leaf from his own experience in these cities. Mr Sharma is happy that his novel is still in print even after almost two decades. When questioned about the title, he says that the protagonist is shown to taste the city life in Delhi compared to the quiet beauty of Dehradun. Of course, the cities described by the author are portrayed as they were 18 years ago, but the storyline is such that the reader will find it to be current. The protagonist is revisiting his love, and yet he says, ‘We weren’t lovers like that’ because he has other issues on his mind now compared to the time when his relationship was alive the first time. For him, the Orange City Literature Festival has been a great platform to share his experiences about the novel.