Early life Gurdial Singh was born on 10 January 1933 in the village of Bhaini Fateh near
Jaitu By his own admission, Singh worked 16 hours a day when he took on various jobs such as making wheels for
bullock carts and
metal sheet forming for water tanks. Together, he and his father earned a day from hard labour. The first edition of the translation was published in 1991 by the Sahitya Akademi. A revised edition of
The Last Flicker appeared in 2010, published by the National Book Trust. Singh's other notable works included the novels
Anhoe (1966),
Addh Chanani Raat (1972), the Soviet Land Nehru Award in 1986,
Death Singh suffered from a
heart attack earlier in 2016 after which he was partially
paralysed. On 13 August 2016 he fell unconscious at his home in Jaitu and was admitted into a private hospital at
Bathinda where he was kept on
ventilator support. He died on 16 August 2016, when he was taken off life support systems, after it was determined that Singh had shown no signs of recovery. He is survived by his wife, Balwant Kaur, a son and two daughters. ==Works==