R.K. Narayan (1906-2001), hailed as
one of the greatest Anglo-Indian writer died at the age of 95
following a cardio-respiratory failure.
Praises for specific books:
The Man-eater of Malgudi
'...this is one of his most successful efforts...it cracks
the whole of life wide open.'- The New Yorker
A Tiger for Malgudi
'Narayan's teasing wit and insights into human (and tiger)
nature. '- The Times, London
'A poem for everyone from eight to eighty sounds like an old circle. But
that is exactly what this story is.' - The Daily Telegraph
Talkative Man
'Talkative Man conveys....a narrative skill that calculates
pace and distance to perfection.' - Alan Ross, London Magazine
Swami and Friends
'It is a book in ten thousand.'- Graham Greene
The Financial Expert
'This is a precious book. It is full of hidden irony and
hidden humour...Humour knows no national boundaries. Only jokes have
national boundaries....The author has drawn a type which should have taken
its place long ago in world literature because he exists everywhere.' - Der
Kurier, Berlin
A Writer's Nightmare
'(A book) to be dipped into and savoured.'-
Sunday
My Dateless Diary
'Witty and often hilarious...view of the U.S.'- Sunday Herald
Malgudi, the home of many lively characters such as Swami and his
friends, Mr.Sampath and Nataraj is a small fictional town in Mysore
but to us it seems that the place does exist in reality. The city of
Malgudi was born out of the pen of R.K Narayan, considered to be the
pioneer of Anglo-Indian writer along with G.V. Desani.
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan (in short R.K Narayan) was born in
Madras, South India in 1906. He got his education at Maharaja's
College (now called as Collegiate High School) in Mysore where his
father was a professor. Like many successful person, he was not
immediately successful in his writing career. He struggled to earn his
living out of the small money he got by writing stories and essays for
various newspapers. But it all changed when the draft of his first
novel based on Malgudi titled Swami and Friends was read by the
famous British writer Graham Greene. It got published with the
financial aid of Graham Greene and from then onwards, the writer never
looked back and continued enchanting millions of readers all over the
world. He wrote altogether 29 novels all based on Malgudi and numerous
short stories. His novel The Guide won him the prestigious
Sahitya Academi Award first time given to a book in English. His
novels have so wonderfully depicted the lives of common Indian that
Graham Greene found his second home in India. From what I have read in
Salman Rushdie' s controversial book "An Anthology of Indian
Writings", R.K Narayan is currently working on a sequel to his
last novel "The World of Nagaraj". It is a great
disappointment there is not even a single site dedicated to R.K
Narayan. In fact, there is not even a single official site of other
great Anglo-Indian writers. If you are interested in knowing more
about his life you can read his memoir My Days. His other
publications include the collection of short stories like An
Astrologer's Days and other stories, Under the Banyan tree and
other stories, Lawley Road and Malgudi Days. He has
written a travel book The Emerald Route, three collections of
essays A Writer's Nightmare, Next Sunday and Reluctant
Guru and three books on the Indian epics viz. Gods, Demons and
Others, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. He has
even a written a diary titled My Dateless Diary telling about
his views on the US when he traveled there.
Some of R.K Narayan's novels collected in one volume can bring you joy
and tear at the same time at a reasonable price. A Malgudi Omnibus
(Vintage) and A Town called Malgudi (Viking) are such volumes.
Swami and Friends (1935)
The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
The Dark Room (1938)
The English Teacher (1944)
Mr. Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi (1949)
The Financial Expert (1952)
The Vendor of Sweets (1967)
The Painter of Signs (1976)
A Tiger for Malgudi (1983)
Talkative Man (1986)
The World Of Nagaraj (1990)
Essays
Next Sunday (1960)
Reluctant Guru (1974)
A Writer's Nightmare (1988)
The World of the Story-teller (1989)
Gods, Demons and Others
(1965)
The Ramayana (1972)
The Mahabharata (1978)
Stories
A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
An Astrologer's Days and Other Stories
(1947)
Lawley Road (1956)
Malgudi Days (1982)
Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories
(1985)
The Grandmother's Tale (1993)
Memoirs
My Days (1974)
Travelogue
My Dateless Diary (1964)
The Emerald Route (1980)
Narayan's comedy.....is classical art, profound in feeling and
delicate in control.- The New York Times Book Review
One of the most charming masters of twentieth century fiction. -
The Scotsman
Mr. Narayan writes in the main stream of the great comic
tradition. - New Statesman and Nation
Since the death of Evelyn Waugh, Narayan is the novelist I
most admire in the English language.- Graham Greene
Like Paul Theroux and V.S Naipaul, Mr. Narayan has a faultless
ear for the intricate eccentricities of Indian language.- The
Times
Narayan is a voice of great distinction.- Sunday Times
Connoisseurs have known for years that R.K. Narayan's city of
Malgudi, a hybrid of Mysore and the molten universe, is the place to
go for some of the best, wisest and most affectation-free writing and
some of the slyest scenes from the human comedy. -Observer
Narayan has created in this figure a type which is unique in
world literature.- Flensburger Tageblatt
It is his frank perception of human motive- in its mixture of
self-interest and sincerity- that makes his characters so delightful
and universal. - Andrew Robinson, The Spectator
Mr. Narayan is an almost placid, good-natured storyteller whose
work derives its charm from the immense clam out of which he writes.-
Alfred Kazin, The New York Times Review
"There are writers- Tolstoy and Henry
James to name two- whom we held in awe, writers- Turgenev and Chekhov-
for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect-
Conrad for example- but who hold us at a long arm's length with their
'courtly foreign grace.' Narayan {whom I don't hesitate to name in
such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of
gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could
never have known what it is like to be Indian." - Graham Greene
After more than five decades of writing, RK Narayan's gentle pen has been laid to rest. But a writer lives on as long as his or her books are read.
Besides, every one of Narayan's readers, even those who have not read him in recent years, knows what Narayan-land is called: Malgudi.
Malgudi has has been described as small-town India; As Anytown; as a part of Indian literary history. But Narayan's own choices of detail paints the most eloquent signpost of all.
You know you are in the world of the storyteller, he says, when "the nearest railway station is 60 miles away, to be reached by an occasional bus passing down the highway, marching distance from the village by a shortcut across the canal."
Once we are in this village-town, our guide, the storyteller, awaits us. One of the storyteller himself, Narayan says he
continues "in his habits and deportment the traditions of a thousand years."
(But sometimes he may display an amazing knowledge of modern life, acquired through the perusal of a bundle of old newspapers brought to him by the "weekly" postman every Thursday afternoon.)
This parenthetical comment on the storyteller's nature- one foot in a timeless world, the other in the restless, changing present- holds the key to Narayan's own fictional landscape.
In all his books, from the well known The Vendor of Sweets or The Guide
to the less-known The Dark Room, there is a tussle going on between tradition and modernity.
But in keeping with Narayan's genial eye, this is never a sharp or painful conflict.
The tussle between old and new, between custom and change, is more of a family affair in Narayan's stories, almost a sort of sibling rivalry that is bound to get resolved.
There is another reason- not a literary one- why this peaceful co-existence of past and present seems particularly refreshing to us today.
Narayan was not a trailblazer of "new writing from India"; he
travelled rarely, and when he did he wrote essays rather than providing
startling interview-copy.
Not only did he fail to get an advance swollen with global zeroes
he also published some of his books on his own.
Perhaps the only concession he ever made to marketability was that
he shortened his name from RK Narayanaswamy to RK Narayan, apparently
on Graham Greene's advice.
On the other hand, Narayan was that whimsical, prolific,
indispensable creature he describes so eloquently: a storyteller.
He wrote novels, short stories, essays, re-telling of the epics,
sketches and memoirs, all of which tried to convey his acute sense of
the land and the people he knew.
His work was born out of his own "regional" experience;
though he wrote in English, it is a quiet, transparent English that
takes for granted its intimacy with the rhythm of Tamil.
Narayan will be read and remembered for his gentle, trustworthy
vision.
But I suspect Narayan would also like his new generation of
readers, those who will probably come to his works via a textbook, to
remember him through an additional detail.
In his stint as a Rajya Sabha member, Narayan apparently made only
one intervention.
This was a passionate criticism of a school system that bends
children's backs with heavy schoolbags rather than exciting their
minds of imagination.
An appropriate reminder from the writer of My Days and Swami and
Friends.
I very much hope that this page on the
author turns out to be helpful to those who simply love Narayan's books. Just
now, I am working towards expanding this page on Narayan and in near
future, I hope to make it one of the best web pages on Narayan. So, a
18 year old college student asks for help to all those who visit this
page. Please do send me any articles on Narayan ( can be your views or
opinions on Narayan, reviews of his books or an obituary ). And I will
have them on my page for everyone to see. Write them to me at rigzin143s@yahoo.co.uk
