R. K.

Narayan
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (10 October 1906
R. K. Narayan
– 13 May 2001),[1] commonly known as R. K. Narayan, was an
Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian
town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in
English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.

Narayan's mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in

getting publishers for Narayan's first four books including the semi-
autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts
and The English Teacher. The fictional town of Malgudi was first
introduced in Swami and Friends. Narayan's The Financial Expert
was hailed as one of the most original works of 1951 and Sahitya
Academy Award winner The Guide was adapted for film (winning a
Filmfare Award for Best Film) and for Broadway.

Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of his

characters. He has been compared to William Faulkner who also
created a similar fictional town and likewise explored with humour
and compassion the energy of ordinary life. Narayan's short stories Born Rasipuram
have been compared with those of Guy de Maupassant because of his Krishnaswami Iyer
ability to compress a narrative. Narayanaswami
10 October 1906
In a career that spanned over sixty years Narayan received many
Madras (now
awards and honours including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal
Chennai), Madras
Society of Literature, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan,
Presidency (Tamil
India's second and third highest civilian awards,[2] and in 1994 the
Nadu), British India
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour of India's national (India)
academy of letters.[3] He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the
Died 13 May 2001
upper house of the Indian Parliament.
(aged 94)
Chennai, Tamil
Nadu, India
Contents Occupation Writer
Life and career Nationality Indian
Early life Alma mater Maharaja's College,
The busy years Mysore
The later years Genre Fiction, mythology
and non-fiction
Literary review
Writing style Notable Padma Vibhushan,
awards Sahitya Akademi
Malgudi
Fellowship, Benson
Critical reception Medal
Awards and honours Spouse Rajam
Legacy (m. 1934; died 1939)
Children 1, Hema Narayan
Bibliography
 Adaptations Relatives R. K. Laxman
(brother)
See also
Notes Member of Parliament Rajya
Sabha
References
In office
Further reading 12 May 1986 – 11 May 1992

Life and career

Early life

R. K. Narayan was born in Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu), British India
into a Iyer Vadama Brahmin family.[4] He was one of eight children; six sons
and two daughters. Narayan was second among the sons; his younger brother
Ramachandran later became an editor at Gemini Studios, and the youngest
brother Laxman became a cartoonist.[5][6] His father was a school headmaster,
and Narayan did some of his studies at his father's school. As his father's job
entailed frequent transfers, Narayan spent a part of his childhood under the
care of his maternal grandmother, Parvati.[7] During this time his best friends
and playmates were a peacock and a mischievous monkey.[1][8][9]

His grandmother gave him the nickname of Kunjappa, A name that stuck to
him in family circles.[10] She taught him arithmetic, mythology, classical
R. K. Narayan, c. 1925–26
Indian music and Sanskrit.[11] According to Laxman, the family mostly
conversed in English, and grammatical errors on the part of Narayan and his
siblings were frowned upon.[12] While living with his grandmother, Narayan studied at a succession of schools
in Madras, including the Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam,[6] C.R.C. High School, and the Christian
College High School.[13] Narayan was an avid reader, and his early literary diet included Dickens,
Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy.[14] When he was twelve years old, Narayan
participated in a pro-independence march, for which he was reprimanded by his uncle; the family was
apolitical and considered all governments wicked.[15]

Narayan moved to Mysore to live with his family when his father was transferred to the Maharajah's College
High School. The well-stocked library at the school, as well as his father's own, fed his reading habit, and he
started writing as well. After completing high school, Narayan failed the university entrance examination and
spent a year at home reading and writing; he subsequently passed the examination in 1926 and joined
Maharaja College of Mysore. It took Narayan four years to obtain his bachelor's degree, a year longer than
usual. After being persuaded by a friend that taking a master's degree (M.A.) would kill his interest in
literature, he briefly held a job as a school teacher; however, he quit in protest when the headmaster of the
school asked him to substitute for the physical training master.[6] The experience made Narayan realise that the
only career for him was in writing, and he decided to stay at home and write novels.[16][17] His first published
work was a book review of Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England.[18] Subsequently, he
started writing the occasional local interest story for English newspapers and magazines. Although the writing
did not pay much (his income for the first year was nine rupees and twelve annas), he had a regular life and
few needs, and his family and friends respected and supported his unorthodox choice of career.[19] In 1930,
Narayan wrote his first novel, Swami and Friends,[18] an effort ridiculed by his uncle[20] and rejected by a
string of publishers.[12] With this book, Narayan created Malgudi, a town that creatively reproduced the social
sphere of the country; while it ignored the limits imposed by colonial rule, it also grew with the various socio-
political changes of British and post-independence India.[21]
While vacationing at his sister's house in Coimbatore, in 1933,
Narayan met and fell in love with Rajam, a 15-year-old girl who lived
nearby. Despite many astrological and financial obstacles, Narayan
managed to gain permission from the girl's father and married her.[22]
Following his marriage, Narayan became a reporter for a Madras-
based paper called The Justice, dedicated to the rights of non-
Brahmins. The publishers were thrilled to have a Brahmin Iyer in
Narayan espousing their cause. The job brought him in contact with a
wide variety of people and issues.[23] Earlier, Narayan had sent the
manuscript of Swami and Friends to a friend at Oxford, and about
this time, the friend showed the manuscript to Graham Greene.
Greene recommended the book to his publisher, and it was finally
published in 1935.[1] Greene also counseled Narayan on shortening
his name to become more familiar to the English-speaking
audience.[24] The book was semi-autobiographical and built upon
many incidents from his own childhood.[25] Reviews were favourable
but sales were few. Narayan's next novel The Bachelor of Arts
(1937), was inspired in part by his experiences at college,[26] and
dealt with the theme of a rebellious adolescent transitioning to a rather R. K. Narayan with his wife Rajam,
c. 1935
well-adjusted adult;[27] it was published by a different publisher, again
at the recommendation of Greene. His third novel, The Dark Room
(1938) was about domestic disharmony,[28] showcasing the man as
the oppressor and the woman as the victim within a marriage, and was published by yet another publisher; this
book also received good reviews. In 1937, Narayan's father died, and Narayan was forced to accept a
commission from the government of Mysore as he was not making any money.[29]

In his first three books, Narayan highlights the problems with certain socially accepted practices. The first
book has Narayan focusing on the plight of students, punishments of caning in the classroom, and the
associated shame. The concept of horoscope-matching in Hindu marriages and the emotional toll it levies on
the bride and groom is covered in the second book. In the third book, Narayan addresses the concept of a wife
putting up with her husband's antics and attitudes.[30]

Rajam died of typhoid in 1939.[31] Her death affected Narayan deeply and he remained depressed for a long
time. He never remarried in his life; he was also concerned for their daughter Hema, who was only three years
old. The bereavement brought about a significant change in his life and was the inspiration behind his next
novel, The English Teacher.[18] This book, like his first two books, is autobiographical, but more so, and
completes an unintentional thematic trilogy following Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts.[32][33] In
subsequent interviews, Narayan acknowledges that The English Teacher was almost entirely an
autobiography, albeit with different names for the characters and the change of setting in Malgudi; he also
explains that the emotions detailed in the book reflected his own at the time of Rajam's death.[34]

Bolstered by some of his successes, in 1940 Narayan tried his hand at a journal, Indian Thought.[35] With the
help of his uncle, a car salesman, Narayan managed to get more than a thousand subscribers in Madras city
alone. However, the venture did not last long due to Narayan's inability to manage it, and it ceased publication
within a year.[36] His first collection of short stories, Malgudi Days, was published in November 1942,
followed by The English Teacher in 1945. In between, being cut off from England due to the war, Narayan
started his own publishing company, naming it (again) Indian Thought Publications; the publishing company
was a success and is still active, now managed by his granddaughter.[16] Soon, with a devoted readership
stretching from New York to Moscow, Narayan's books started selling well and in 1948 he started building his
own house on the outskirts of Mysore; the house was completed in 1953.[37] Around this period, Narayan
wrote the story for the Gemini Studios film Miss Malini (1947), which remained the only story written by him
for the screen that came to fruition.[6]
The busy years

After The English Teacher, Narayan's writings took a more imaginative and creative external style compared
to the semi-autobiographical tone of the earlier novels. His next effort, Mr. Sampath, was the first book
exhibiting this modified approach. However, it still draws from some of his own experiences, particularly the
aspect of starting his own journal; he also makes a marked movement away from his earlier novels by
intermixing biographical events.[38] Soon after, he published The Financial Expert, considered to be his
masterpiece and hailed as one of the most original works of fiction in 1951.[39][40] The inspiration for the
novel was a true story about a financial genius, Margayya, related to him by his brother.[41] The next novel,
Waiting for the Mahatma, loosely based on a fictional visit to Malgudi by Mahatma Gandhi, deals with the
protagonist's romantic feelings for a woman, when he attends the discourses of the visiting Mahatma. The
woman, named Bharti, is a loose parody of Bharati, the personification of India and the focus of Gandhi's
discourses. While the novel includes significant references to the Indian independence movement, the focus is
on the life of the ordinary individual, narrated with Narayan's usual dose of irony.[42]

In 1953, his works were published in the United States for the first time, by
Michigan State University Press, who later (in 1958), relinquished the rights to
Viking Press.[43] While Narayan's writings often bring out the anomalies in
social structures and views, he was himself a traditionalist; in February 1956,
Narayan arranged his daughter's wedding following all orthodox Hindu
rituals.[44] After the wedding, Narayan began travelling occasionally, continuing
to write at least 1500 words a day even while on the road.[37] The Guide was
Lyle Blair of Michigan written while he was visiting the United States in 1956 on the Rockefeller
State University Press Fellowship. While in the U.S., Narayan maintained a daily journal that was to
(Narayan's U.S. later serve as the foundation for his book My Dateless Diary.[45] Around this
publisher), Narayan and time, on a visit to England, Narayan met his friend and mentor Graham Greene
Anthony West of The
for the first and only time.[31] On his return to India, The Guide was published;
New Yorker
the book is the most representative of Narayan's writing skills and elements,
ambivalent in expression, coupled with a riddle-like conclusion.[46] The book
won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958.[47]

Occasionally, Narayan was known to give form to his thoughts by way of essays, some published in
newspapers and journals, others not. Next Sunday (1960), was a collection of such conversational essays, and
his first work to be published as a book.[48] Soon after that, My Dateless Diary, describing experiences from
his 1956 visit to the United States, was published. Also included in this collection was an essay about the
writing of The Guide.[45][49]

Narayan's next novel, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, was published in 1961. The book was reviewed as having a
narrative that is a classical art form of comedy, with delicate control.[43] After the launch of this book, the
restless Narayan once again took to travelling, and visited the U.S.[16] and Australia. He spent three weeks in
Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne giving lectures on Indian literature. The trip was funded by a fellowship
from the Australian Writers' Group.[50] By this time Narayan had also achieved significant success, both
literary and financial. He had a large house in Mysore, and wrote in a study with no fewer than eight
windows; he drove a new Mercedes-Benz, a luxury in India at that time, to visit his daughter who had moved
to Coimbatore after her marriage. With his success, both within India and abroad, Narayan started writing
columns for magazines and newspapers including The Hindu and The Atlantic.[51]

In 1964, Narayan published his first mythological work, Gods, Demons and Others, a collection of rewritten
and translated short stories from Hindu epics. Like many of his other works, this book was illustrated by his
younger brother R. K. Laxman. The stories included were a selective list, chosen on the basis of powerful
protagonists, so that the impact would be lasting, irrespective of the reader's contextual knowledge.[52] Once
again, after the book launch, Narayan took to travelling abroad. In an earlier essay, he had written about the
Americans wanting to understand spirituality from him, and during this visit, Swedish-American actress Greta
Garbo accosted him on the topic, despite his denial of any knowledge.[1]

Narayan's next published work was the 1967 novel, The Vendor of Sweets. It was inspired in part by his
American visits and consists of extreme characterizations of both the Indian and American stereotypes,
drawing on the many cultural differences. However, while it displays his characteristic comedy and narrative,
the book was reviewed as lacking in depth.[53] This year, Narayan travelled to England, where he received the
first of his honorary doctorates from the University of Leeds.[54] The next few years were a quiet period for
him. He published his next book, a collection of short stories, A Horse and Two Goats, in 1970.[55]
Meanwhile, Narayan remembered a promise made to his dying uncle in 1938, and started translating the
Kamba Ramayanam to English. The Ramayana was published in 1973, after five years of work.[56] Almost
immediately after publishing The Ramayana, Narayan started working on a condensed translation of the
Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata. While he was researching and writing the epic, he also published another
book, The Painter of Signs (1977). The Painter of Signs is a bit longer than a novella and makes a marked
change from Narayan's other works, as he deals with hitherto unaddressed subjects such as sex, although the
development of the protagonist's character is very similar to his earlier creations. The Mahabharata was
published in 1978.[57]

The later years

Narayan was commissioned by the government of Karnataka to write a book to promote tourism in the state.
The work was published as part of a larger government publication in the late 1970s.[58] He thought it
deserved better, and republished it as The Emerald Route (Indian Thought Publications, 1980).[59] The book
contains his personal perspective on the local history and heritage, but being bereft of his characters and
creations, it misses his enjoyable narrative.[49] The same year, he was elected as an honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and won the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of
Literature.[60] Around the same time, Narayan's works were translated to Chinese for the first time.[61]

In 1983, Narayan published his next novel, A Tiger for Malgudi, about a tiger and its relationship with
humans.[62] His next novel, Talkative Man, published in 1986, was the tale of an aspiring journalist from
Malgudi.[63] During this time, he also published two collections of short stories: Malgudi Days (1982), a
revised edition including the original book and some other stories, and Under the Banyan Tree and Other
Stories, a new collection.[64] In 1987, he completed A Writer's Nightmare, another collection of essays about
topics as diverse as the caste system, Nobel prize winners, love, and monkeys. The collection included essays
he had written for newspapers and magazines since 1958.[65][66]

He was Living alone in Mysore, Narayan developed an interest in agriculture. He bought an acre of
agricultural land and tried his hand at farming.[67] He was also prone to walking to the market every afternoon,
not so much for buying things, but to interact with the people. In a typical afternoon stroll, he would stop every
few steps to greet and converse with shopkeepers and others, most likely gathering material for his next
book.[68]

In 1980, Narayan was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, for his
contributions to literature.[69] During his entire six-year term, he was focused on one issue—the plight of
school children, especially the heavy load of school books and the negative effect of the system on a child's
creativity, which was something that he first highlighted in his debut novel, Swami and Friends. His inaugural
speech was focused on this particular problem, and resulted in the formation of a committee chaired by Prof.
Yash Pal, to recommend changes to the school educational system.[70]
In 1990, he published his next novel, The World of Nagaraj, also set in Malgudi. Narayan's age shows in this
work as he appears to skip narrative details that he would have included if this were written earlier in his
career.[71] Soon after he finished the novel, Narayan fell ill and moved to Madras to be close to his daughter's
family.[67] A few years after his move, in 1994, his daughter died of cancer and his granddaughter
Bhuvaneswari (Minnie) started taking care of him in addition to managing Indian Thought Publications.[1][16]
Narayan then published his final book, Grandmother's Tale. The book is an autobiographical novella, about
his great-grandmother who travelled far and wide to find her husband, who ran away shortly after their
marriage. The story was narrated to him by his grandmother, when he was a child.[72]

During his final years, Narayan, ever fond of conversation, would spend almost every evening with N. Ram,
the publisher of The Hindu, drinking coffee and talking about various topics until well past midnight.[73]
Despite his fondness of meeting and talking to people, he stopped giving interviews. The apathy towards
interviews was the result of an interview with Time, after which Narayan had to spend a few days in the
hospital, as he was dragged around the city to take photographs that were never used in the article.[35]

In May 2001, Narayan was hospitalised. A few hours before he was to be put on a ventilator, he was planning
on writing his next novel, a story about a grandfather. As he was always very selective about his choice of
notebooks, he asked N. Ram to get him one. However, Narayan did not get better and never started the novel.
He died on 13 May 2001, in Chennai at the age of 94.[13][74]

Literary review

Writing style

Narayan's writing technique was unpretentious with a natural element

of humour about it.[75] It focused on ordinary people, reminding the
reader of next-door neighbours, cousins and the like, thereby
providing a greater ability to relate to the topic.[76] Unlike his national
contemporaries, he was able to write about the intricacies of Indian
society without having to modify his characteristic simplicity to
conform to trends and fashions in fiction writing.[77] He also
employed the use of nuanced dialogic prose with gentle Tamil
overtones based on the nature of his characters.[78] Critics have R. K.Narayan's signature
considered Narayan to be the Indian Chekhov, due to the similarities
in their writings, the simplicity and the gentle beauty and humour in
tragic situations.[79] Greene considered Narayan to be more similar to Chekhov than any Indian writer.[4]
Anthony West of The New Yorker considered Narayan's writings to be of the realism variety of Nikolai
Gogol.[80]

According to Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, Narayan's short stories have the same captivating feeling as
his novels, with most of them less than ten pages long, and taking about as many minutes to read. She adds
that between the title sentence and the end, Narayan provides the reader something novelists struggle to
achieve in hundreds more pages: a complete insight to the lives of his characters. These characteristics and
abilities led Lahiri to classify him as belonging to the pantheon of short-story geniuses that include O. Henry,
Frank O'Connor and Flannery O'Connor. Lahiri also compares him to Guy de Maupassant for their ability to
compress the narrative without losing the story, and the common themes of middle-class life written with an
unyielding and unpitying vision.[14]
Critics have noted that Narayan's writings tend to be more descriptive and less analytical; the objective style,
rooted in a detached spirit, providing for a more authentic and realistic narration.[81] His attitude, coupled with
his perception of life, provided a unique ability to fuse characters and actions,[82] and an ability to use ordinary
events to create a connection in the mind of the reader.[83] A significant contributor to his writing style was his
creation of Malgudi, a stereotypical small town, where the standard norms of superstition and tradition
apply.[84]

Narayan's writing style was often compared to that of William Faulkner since both their works brought out the
humour and energy of ordinary life while displaying compassionate humanism.[85] The similarities also
extended to their juxtaposing of the demands of society against the confusions of individuality.[86] Although
their approach to subjects was similar, their methods were different; Faulkner was rhetorical and illustrated his
points with immense prose while Narayan was very simple and realistic, capturing the elements all the
same.[87]

Malgudi

Malgudi is a fictional fully urban town in southern India, conjured by Narayan.[88] He created the town in
September 1930, on Vijayadashami, an auspicious day to start new efforts and thus chosen for him by his
grandfather.[89] As he mentioned in a later interview to his biographers Susan and N. Ram, in his mind, he first
saw a railway station, and slowly the name Malgudi came to him.[90] The town was created with an
impeccable historical record, dating to the Ramayana days when it was noted that Lord Rama passed through;
it was also said that the Buddha visited the town during his travels.[91] While Narayan never provided strict
physical constraints for the town, he allowed it to form shape with events in various stories, becoming a
reference point for the future.[92] Dr James M. Fennelly, a scholar of Narayan's works, created a map of
Malgudi based on the fictional descriptors of the town from the many books and stories.[14]

Malgudi evolved with the changing political landscape of India. In the 1980s, when the nationalistic fervor in
India dictated the changing of British names of towns and localities and removal of British landmarks,
Malgudi's mayor and city council removed the long-standing statue of Frederick Lawley, one of Malgudi's
early residents. However, when the Historical Societies showed proof that Lawley was strong in his support of
the Indian independence movement, the council was forced to undo all their earlier actions.[93] A good
comparison to Malgudi, a place that Greene characterised as "more familiar than Battersea or Euston Road", is
Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County.[85] Also, like Faulkner's, when one looks at Narayan's works, the town
gets a better definition through the many different novels and stories.[94]

Critical reception

Narayan first broke through with the help of Graham Greene who, upon reading Swaminathan and Tate, took
it upon himself to work as Narayan's agent for the book. He was also instrumental in changing the title to the
more appropriate Swami and Friends, and in finding publishers for Narayan's next few books. While
Narayan's early works were not commercial successes, other authors of the time began to notice him. Somerset
Maugham, on a trip to Mysore in 1938, had asked to meet Narayan, but not enough people had heard of him
to actually effect the meeting. Maugham subsequently read Narayan's The Dark Room, and wrote to him
expressing his admiration.[95][96] Another contemporary writer who took a liking to Narayan's early works
was E. M. Forster,[97] an author who shared his dry and humorous narrative, so much so that Narayan was
labeled the "South Indian E. M. Forster" by critics.[98] Despite his popularity with the reading public and
fellow writers, Narayan's work has not received the same amount of critical exploration accorded to other
writers of his stature.[99]
Narayan's success in the United States came a little later, when Michigan State University Press started
publishing his books. His first visit to the country was on a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, and
he lectured at various universities including Michigan State University and the University of California,
Berkeley. Around this time, John Updike noticed his work and compared Narayan to Charles Dickens. In a
review of Narayan's works published in The New Yorker, Updike called him a writer of a vanishing breed—
the writer as a citizen; one who identifies completely with his subjects and with a belief in the significance of
humanity.[100]

Having published many novels, essays and short stories, Narayan is credited with bringing Indian writing to
the rest of the world. While he has been regarded as one of India's greatest writers of the twentieth century,
critics have also described his writings with adjectives such as charming, harmless and benign.[101] Narayan
has also come in for criticism from later writers, particularly of Indian origin, who have classed his writings as
having a pedestrian style with a shallow vocabulary and a narrow vision.[16] According to Shashi Tharoor,
Narayan's subjects are similar to those of Jane Austen as they both deal with a very small section of society.
However, he adds that while Austen's prose was able to take those subjects beyond ordinariness, Narayan's
was not.[102] A similar opinion is held by Shashi Deshpande who characterizes Narayan's writings as
pedestrian and naive because of the simplicity of his language and diction, combined with the lack of any
complexity in the emotions and behaviours of his characters.[103]

A general perception on Narayan was that he did not involve himself or his writings with the politics or
problems of India, as mentioned by V. S. Naipaul in one of his columns. However, according to Wyatt Mason
of The New Yorker, although Narayan's writings seem simple and display a lack of interest in politics, he
delivers his narrative with an artful and deceptive technique when dealing with such subjects and does not
entirely avoid them, rather letting the words play in the reader's mind.[101] Srinivasa Iyengar, former vice-
chancellor of Andhra University, says that Narayan wrote about political topics only in the context of his
subjects, quite unlike his compatriot Mulk Raj Anand who dealt with the political structures and problems of
the time.[104] Paul Brians, in his book Modern South Asian Literature in English, says that the fact that
Narayan completely ignored British rule and focused on the private lives of his characters is a political
statement on its own, declaring his independence from the influence of colonialism.[99]

In the west, Narayan's simplicity of writing was well received. One of his biographers, William Walsh, wrote
of his narrative as a comedic art with an inclusive vision informed by the transience and illusion of human
action. Multiple Booker nominee Anita Desai classes his writings as "compassionate realism" where the
cardinal sins are unkindness and immodesty.[105] According to Wyatt Mason, in Narayan's works, the
individual is not a private entity, but rather a public one and this concept is an innovation that can be called his
own. In addition to his early works being among the most important English-language fiction from India, with
this innovation, he provided his western readers the first works in English to be infused with an eastern and
Hindu existential perspective. Mason also holds the view that Edmund Wilson's assessment of Walt Whitman,
"He does not write editorials on events but describes his actual feelings", applies equally to Narayan.[101]

Awards and honours

Narayan won numerous awards during the course of his literary career.[106] His first major award was in 1958,
the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide.[107] When the book was made into a film, he received the
Filmfare Award for the best story. In 1964, he received the Padma Bhushan during the Republic Day
honours.[108] In 1980, he was awarded the AC Benson Medal by the (British) Royal Society of Literature, of
which he was an honorary member.[109] In 1982 he was elected an honorary member of the American
Academy of Arts and Letters.[77] He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times, but never
won the honour.[110]
Recognition also came in the form of honorary doctorates conferred
by the University of Leeds (1967),[111] Delhi University (1973) [112]
and the University of Mysore (1976).[113] Toward the end of his
career, Narayan was nominated to the upper house of the Indian
Parliament for a six-year term starting in 1989, for his contributions to
Indian literature.[69] A year before his death, in 2001, he was awarded
India's second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan.[114]

Legacy
Narayan's greatest achievement was making India accessible to the
outside world through his literature. He is regarded as one of the three
Narayan on a 2009 stamp of India
leading English language Indian fiction writers, along with Raja Rao
and Mulk Raj Anand. He gave his readers something to look forward
to with Malgudi and its residents[103][115] and is considered to be one
of the best novelists India has ever produced. He brought small-town
India to his audience in a manner that was both believable and
experiential. Malgudi was not just a fictional town in India, but one
teeming with characters, each with their own idiosyncrasies and
attitudes, making the situation as familiar to the reader as if it were
their own backyard.[85][116] In 2014, Google commemorated
Narayan's 108th birthday by featuring a doodle showing him behind a
copy of Malgudi Days.[117]

"Whom next shall I meet in Malgudi? That is the thought

that comes to me when I close a novel of Mr Narayan's. I
do not wait for another novel. I wait to go out of my door
into those loved and shabby streets and see with
excitement and a certainty of pleasure a stranger
approaching, past the bank, the cinema, the haircutting R. K. Narayan Museum, Mysore
saloon, a stranger who will greet me I know with some
unexpected and revealing phrase that will open a door on
to yet another human existence."

— Graham Greene[118]

In mid-2016, Narayan's former home in Mysore was converted to a museum in his honour. The original
structure was built in 1952. The house and surrounding land was acquired by real estate contractors to raze
down and build an apartment complex in its stead but citizens groups and the Mysore City Corporation
stepped in to repurchase the building and land and then restore it, subsequently converting it to a museum. The
museum admission is free of charge and it is open between 10.00 am and 5.00 pm except on Tuesdays.
[119][120]

On 8 November 2019, his book Swami and Friends was ranked at BBC's Novels That Shaped Our
World.[121]

Bibliography
Novels
 Swami and Friends (1935,
Hamish Hamilton)
The Bachelor of Arts (1937,
Thomas Nelson)
The Dark Room (1938,
Eyre)
The English Teacher
(1945, Eyre)
Mr. Sampath (1948, Eyre)
The Financial Expert The Painter of Signs (1977,
(1952, Methuen) Heinemann)
Waiting for the Mahatma A Tiger for Malgudi (1983,
(1955, Methuen) Heinemann)
The Guide (1958, Methuen) Talkative Man (1986,
The Man-Eater of Malgudi Heinemann)
(1961, Viking) The World of Nagaraj
The Vendor of Sweets (1990, Heinemann)
(1967, The Bodley Head) Grandmother's Tale (1992,
Indian Thought
Publications)

Non-fiction

Next Sunday (1960, Indian Reluctant Guru (1974, A Story-Teller's World

Thought Publications)
My Dateless Diary (1960,
Indian Thought
Publications)
My Days (1973, Viking)
Orient Paperbacks) (1989, Penguin Books)
The Emerald Route (1980, The Writerly Life (2001,
Indian Thought Penguin Books India)
Publications) Mysore (1944, second
A Writer's Nightmare (1988, edition, Indian Thought
Penguin Books) Publications)

Mythology

Gods, Demons and Others The Ramayana (1972, The Mahabharata (1978,
(1964, Viking) Chatto & Windus) Heinemann)

Short story collections

Malgudi Days (1942, Indian
Thought Publications)
An Astrologer's Day and
Other Stories (1947, Indian
Thought Publications)
Lawley Road and Other
Stories (1956, Indian
Thought Publications)
A Horse and Two Goats
(1970)
Under the Banyan Tree and
Other Stories (1985)
The Grandmother's Tale
and Selected Stories
(1994, Viking)

Adaptations

Narayan's book The Guide was adapted into the Hindi film Guide, directed by Vijay Anand. An English-
language version was also released. Narayan was not happy with the way the film was made and its deviation
from the book; he wrote a column in Life magazine, "The Misguided Guide," criticising the film.[6] The book
was also adapted to a Broadway play by Harvey Breit and Patricia Rinehart, and was staged at Hudson
Theatre in 1968 with Zia Mohyeddin playing the lead role and a music score by Ravi Shankar.[122]

Mr. Sampath was made into a Hindi film of the same name with Padmini and Motilal and produced by Gemini
Studios.[123] Another novel, The Financial Expert, was made into the Kannada film Banker Margayya.[124]
Swami and Friends, The Vendor of Sweets and some of Narayan's short stories were adapted by actor-director
Shankar Nag into the television series Malgudi Days. Narayan was happy with the adaptations and
complimented the producers for sticking to the storyline in the books.[125]

See also
 The Martyr's Corner

Notes
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3. George, Rosemary Marangoly (2013), Indian English and the Fiction of National Literature (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=uZc2AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA144), Cambridge University Press,
p. 144, ISBN 978-1-107-04000-7 Quote: "S. Radhakrishnan was the first “Fellow of the
Akademi” to be given this title in 1968 after he left the service of both the government and the
Akademi. ... Mulk Raj Anand was the first Indian English writer to be inducted in 1989 and R. K.
Narayan the second Indian writer working in English to be inducted in 1994."
4. Crossette, Barbara (14 May 2001). "R. K. Narayan, India's Prolific Storyteller, Dies at 94" (http
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Further reading
 Ram, N.; Ram, Susan (1996). R. K. Narayan. Allen Lane. ISBN 978-0-670-87525-2.
OCLC 36283859 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36283859).
Rao, Ranga (2005). R. K. Narayan (https://books.google.com/books?id=Lgs4ebrb6XAC).
Makers of Indian Literature (2nd ed.). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. ISBN 81-260-1971-9.

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