Nayantara Sahgal was born on 10th May 1927 in a political family. Her uncle, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India`s first prime minister and her mother, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was the country`s first ambassador to the U.N. Indira Gandhi was her cousin. Her father, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit was a noted barrister and a literary scholar who translated famous book Raj Tarangini into English from Sanskrit. She received her B.A from Wellesley College, Lucknow in 1947. She was the India`s Ambassador to Italy for a short period when Indira Gandhi was thrown out of power in the elections after the Emergency.

Sahgal was a well-known in the literary worlds. Due to her political background politics reflects on most of her fictions. Her first book "Prison and Chocolate Cake" was published in 1954.The story of her novels are mostly based on the significant events of the Indian history like A Time to Be Happy in 1963.This was followed by some famous novel "This Time of Morning" (1965) , "Storm in Chandigarh" (1969) , "The Day in Shadow" (1971) .

"Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power" (1982) and "A Situation in New Delhi" (1989) were her two political writings. Her two novels were published in the US- "Mistaken Identity" in 1988 and "Rich Like Us" in 1985.Her recent essay collection is Point of View: A Personal Response to Life, Literature And Politics.

Nayantara Sahgal was an advisor to Sahitya Academy`s Board for English from 1972 to 1975. She was a member of Verghese Committee for Autonomy to Radio & TV in 1977-78. In 1978 she was also given the post of Vice-President of People`s Union for Civil Liberties.

She was awarded the Sinclair Prize for fiction in 1985, Sahitya Akademi Award in 1986, and Commonwealth Writers Award in 1987. She was also a Fellow member of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington from 1981 to 1982.

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