A Master Of Observation, Subtlety And Gentle Wit, R.K. Narayan Has Few Rivals When It Comes To Bringing Alive People And Places. Most Of His Timeless Novels Are Set In The Fictional Town Of Malgudi, Located Somewhere In South India, A Town As Real To His Readers As Any They Will Find On The Map. This Volume Contains Three Quintessential Malgudi Novels-Swami And Friends, The Bachelor Of Arts And The Vendor Of Sweets. Swami And Friends, Published In 1935, Was The First Novel Narayan Wrote. Described By Graham Greene As A Novel In Ten Thousand , It Recounts The Adventures Of Ten-Year-Old Swaminathan And His Friends Rajam And Mani. The Bachelor Of Arts, The Second Novel In The Collection, Is A Brilliantly Realized Account Of The Workings Of A Young Man S Mind. It Is The Story Of Chandran, In His Final Year At College, Who Falls Hopelessly In Love And Is Forced To Exile Himself From The Familiar Surroundings Of Malgudi Until He Is Able To Arrive At A Satisfactory Resolution To His Problems. The Vendor Of Sweets Showcases A Classic Cross-Generational Battle, Between Jagan, A Widower Of Firm Ghandian Principles, And His Modern Son Mali, Who Returns To Malgudi With A Half-American Wife And A Grand Plan For Selling Story-Writing Machines. The Third In The Series Of Penguin India S Collectors Editions Of The Malgudi Novels, The Magic Of Malgudi, With An Introduction By S. Krishnan, Will Delight First-Time Readers As Well As Devoted Narayan Fans.

Four gems, with new introductions, mark acclaimed Indian writer R. K. Narayan's centennial Introducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India "the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story." Composed of powerful, magical portraits of all kinds of people, and comprising stories written over almost forty years, Malgudi Days presents Narayan's imaginary city in full color, revealing the essence of India and of human experience. This edition includes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize- winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

R. K. Narayan (1906—2001) witnessed nearly a century of change in his native India and captured it in fiction of uncommon warmth and vibrancy. Swami and Friends introduces us to Narayan’s beloved fictional town of Malgudi, where ten-year-old Swaminathan’s excitement about his country’s initial stirrings for independence competes with his ardor for cricket and all other things British. Written during British rule, this novel brings colonial India into intimate focus through the narrative gifts of this master of literary realism.

Set against the backdrop of the Indian Freedom Movement, this fiction novel from award-winning Indian writer R. K. Narayan traces the adventures of a young man, Sriram, who is suddenly removed from a quiet, apathetic existence and, owing to his involvement in the campaign of Mahatma Gandhi against British rule in India, thrust into a life as adventurously varied as that of any picaresque hero. “There are writers—Tolstoy and Henry James to name two—whom we hold 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 “R. K. Narayan...has been compared to Gogol in England, where he has acquired a well-deserved reputation. The comparison is apt, for Narayan, an Indian, is a writer of Gogol’s stature, with the same gift for creating a provincial atmosphere in a time of change....One is convincingly involved in this alien world without ever being aware of the technical devices Narayan so brilliantly employs.”—Anthony West, The New Yorker

Grandly uninvolved in the bustle of Malgudi, Nagaraj enjoys a purposeless but orderly life of prayer, gossip and a little book-keeping at Coomar's Boeing Sari Centre. Fulfilment, however, eludes him. And even in his desultory determination to write his magnum opus, something always seems to prevent him getting started.Then crisis visits Nagaraj in the person of Tim, his tearaway young nephew, whose escapades not only serve to expose his weaknesses, but also to give him a hundred and one excuses for delay .

A venerable tiger, old and toothless now, looks back over his life from cubhood and early days roaming wild in the Indian jungle. Trapped into a miserable circus career as 'Raja the magnificent', he is then sold into films (co-starring with a beefy Tarzan in a leopard skin) until, finding the human world too brutish and bewildering, he makes a dramatic bid for freedom. R.K. Narayan's story combines Hindu mysticism with ripe Malgudi comedy, viewing human absurdities through the eyes of a wild animal and revealing how, quite unexpectedly, Raja finds sweet companionship and peace.

In A Writing Career Spanning Seven Decades, R.K. Narayan Enthralled And Entertained Generations Of Readers With His Deftly Etched Characters, His Uniquely Stylized Language And His Wry Sense Of Humour. A Storyteller Par Excellence, Narayan S Greatest Achievement Perhaps Lies In Creating And Peopling The Imagined Landscapes Of A Town Called Malgudi, Located Somewhere In South India, Which Has Come Alive In Story After Story In Such A Way That It Has Now Become A Part Of Modern Indian Folklore. This Collection Brings Between Two Covers Some Of The Most Memorable Fiction That Has Emerged From R.K. Narayan S Pen. It Contains The Man-Eater Of Malgudi, Which Tells The Story Of Nataraj, Owner Of A Small Printing Press, And His Houseguest Vasu, A Taxidermist, Who Moves Into Nataraj S Attic With A Menagerie Of Dead Animals. There Is Also Talkative Man, A Novella That Starts Off With The Arrival On The Delhi Train Of A Stranger In A Blue Suit Who Takes Up Residence In The Station Waiting Room And Refuses To Budge. Also Included Here Are Some Of The Most Popular And Striking Short Stories Narayan Has Written: From The Celebrated A Horse And Two Goats And Salt And Sawdust To Gems Like An Astrologer S Day , The Shelter And Under The Banyan Tree . Encapsulating The Very Best Of R.K. Narayan S Remarkable Output, This Is A Fitting Tribute To One Of The Greatest Modern Writers In The English Language.

REQUIRED, THE STORY-TELLER COULD HAVE AN AUDIENCE BUT IN THIS CASE HE WOULDN'T BE READING FROM HIS MS, BUT WOULD BE LOOKING AT THE VILLAGERS. I MUCH PREFER THE STORY-TELLER ALONE.

Today, Indian Writing in English or Indo-Anglian Writing has certainly come of age, with the novel having a pride of place and names such as Salman Rushdie, V.S. Naipaul, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga prominently figuring in the list. But the credit for placing Indo-Anglian writing on a high pedestal should go to earlier writers like Rabindranath Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao. Among these, R.K. Narayan is the most celebrated novelist. This edited volume deals with several important Malgudi novels of R.K. Narayan, such as Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The English Teacher and The Guide and short stories, and throws light on various aspects of his creative art. It traces the evolution of all the genres of Indian Writing in English as well as R.K. Narayan the novelist. The book dwells upon R.K. Narayan’s art of characterization with reference to central male characters, use of humour, and the cultural milieu of Malgudi. It also discusses in detail R.K. Narayan’s standpoint regarding the actual social status of Indian women. Finally, the book focuses on R.K. Narayan’s use of myths and symbols and shows how these enable him to convey artistically the implication of the experience that forms the base of the novels. The book is meant for the undergraduate and postgraduate students of English Literature. Besides, all those readers who wish to delve deeper into the works of R.K. Narayan will find the book quite useful.

This book is expected to be of great help to students and teachers in studying English literature especially in fiction and non-fiction writings Indian and African American literature. It deals with several ideologies and theories in order to evaluate the chosen authors in English.