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Biography of R. K. NarayanName: R. K. NarayanBirth Date: October 10, 1906 Death Date: N/A Place of Birth: Madras, India Nationality: Indian Gender: Male Occupations: writer R. K. Narayan R. K. Narayan (born 1906) is one of the best-known of the Indo-English writers. He created the imaginary town of Malgudi, where realistic characters in a typically Indian setting lived amid unpredictable events.Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanswami, who preferred the shortened name R.K. Narayan, was born in Madras, India, on Oct. 10, 1906. His father, an educator, travelled frequently, and his mother was frail, so Narayan was raised in Madras by his grandmother and an uncle. His grandmother inspired in young Narayan a passion for language and for people. He attended the Christian Mission School, where, he said, he learned to love the Hindu gods simply because the Christian chaplain ridiculed them. Narayan graduated from Maharaja's College in Mysore in 1930. In 1934 he was married, but his wife, Rajam, died of typhoid in 1939. He had one daughter, Hema. He never remarried.Creating a Small-Town WorldNarayan wrote his first novel, Swami and Friends, in 1935, after …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…fourteenth novel Talkative Man (1987) received mixed reviews.In his 80s, Narayan continued to have books published. He returned to his original inspiration, his grandmother, with the 1994 book Grandmother's Tale and Other Stories, which Publishers Weekly called "an exemplary collection from one of India's most distinguished men of letters." Donna Seaman of Booklist hailed the collection of short stories that spanned over 50 years of Narayan's writing as "an excellent sampling of his short fiction, generally considered his best work" from "one of the world's finest storytellers." Narayan once noted: "Novels may bore me, but never people." Further Reading Harish Raizada's, R. K. Narayan: A Critical Study of His Works (New Delhi, 1969), provides a detailed description and evaluation of his work. Discussions of his work are in K. R. Srinivasa Lyengar, Indian Writing in English (1962); David McCutchin's, Indian Writing in English: Critical Essays (1969); and Marion Wynne-Davies', (editor), Bloomsbury Guide to English Literature (1990). |