Hargurchet Singh Bhabra was born in Bombay in 1955. His family emigrated to England when he was an infant and eventually settled in Surrey. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Oxford. His first novel, Gestures, was published in 1986 to considerable acclaim. This was quickly followed by two thrillers issued under the pseudonym A.M. Kabal. Bhabra travelled and worked as a correspondent for a few years.In 1989 he was awarded the first Fulbright Chandler Fellowship in Spy and Detective Fiction Writing. This prize included a post as writer-in-residence at UCLA. Bhabra also taught at Amherst College in Massachusetts before moving in 1994 to Toronto where his parents lived. He taught at the Humber School for Writers prior to joining TVOntario where he held several positions including host of the book program Imprint in 1997. After leaving TVOntario in 1999, Bhabra experienced financial difficulties, and debilitating writer’s block. Sadly, on June 1, 2000, just one week shy of his 45th birthday, Bhabra committed suicide at Toronto’s notorious Bloor Street viaduct.
Fiction
The Adversay
Published under the pseudonym: A.M. Kabal.
Toronto: Irwin, 1986.
London: Sphere Books, 1986.
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart-Bantam, 1987.
Fiction
Bad Money: A Novel
Published under the pseudonym: A.M. Kabal.
Toronto: Irwin, 1986.
Toronto: McClelland-Bantam, 1988.
Fiction
Gestures
Toronto: Irwin Pub., 1986.
Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2002.
PS8553 .H32 G47 2002
Publisher’s Synopsis (Irwin)
[Gestures] is a complex and richly wrought narrative of a world, and its people, caught in the flux of the twentieth century. It is also the autobiography of Jeremy Burnham: Englishman, gentleman, career diplomat, eighty-five years old and looking backward….
Awards and Honours
1987 Betty Trask First Award — First Novel (Winner)
Selected Criticism and Interpretation
Chilana, Rajwant Singh. “Hargurchet Singh Bhabra.” In South Asian Writers in Canada: A Bio-Bibliographical Study. Surrey, BC: Asian Publications, 2017, 198.
Z1376 .S68 C45 2017
Links
Publisher Random House of Canada