R K Narayan Books In Order

Malgudi Books In Order

  1. Swami and Friends (1935)
  2. The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
  3. The English Teacher (1945)
  4. Mr Sampath (1949)
  5. The Financial Expert (1952)
  6. Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
  7. The Man-eater of Malgudi (1961)
  8. Malgudi Days (1982)
  9. A Tiger for Malgudi (1983)
  10. The World of Nagaraj (1990)
  11. Tales from Malgudi (1995)
  12. A Town Called Malgudi (1999)
  13. The Magic of Malgudi (2000)
  14. Memories of Malgudi (2000)
  15. Malgudi Adventures (2003)

Novels

  1. The Dark Room (1938)
  2. Mysore (1939)
  3. The Guide (1958)
  4. The Sweet Vendor (1967)
  5. The Painter of Signs (1976)
  6. The Mahabharata (1978)
  7. Talkative Man (1986)
  8. The Abduction of Sita (2006)

Collections

  1. An Astrologer’s Day (1947)
  2. Lawley Road and Other Stories (1956)
  3. Gods Demons and Others (1965)
  4. A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
  5. Under the Banyan Tree (1985)
  6. The Grandmother’s Tale (1993)
  7. Indian Epics Retold (1995)
  8. A Breath of Lucifer (2011)

Non fiction

  1. My Dateless Diary (1960)
  2. The Ramayana (1972)
  3. My Days (1974)
  4. Reluctant Guru (1975)
  5. The Emerald Route (1980)
  6. A Writers Nightmare (1988)
  7. The Writerly Life (2001)

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R K Narayan Books Overview

Swami and Friends

‘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 GreeneOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief.’The experience of reading one of his novels is…
comparable to one’s first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness like one’s own reflection seen in a green twilight.’ Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune’The novels of R.K. Narayan are the best I have read in any language for a long time…
. His work gives the conviction that it is possible to capture in English, a language not born of India, the distinctive characteristics of Indian family life.’ Amit Roy, Daily Telegraph

The Bachelor of Arts

‘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 GreeneOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief.’The experience of reading one of his novels is…
comparable to one’s first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness like one’s own reflection seen in a green twilight.’ Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune

The English Teacher

This novel completes the informal trilogy which began with Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. The protagonist, Krishna, is an English teacher at the same college he had attended as a student. Although Krishna has recently married, his wife Susila and their daughter live with his parents in law some miles away. The story opens with his immediate family deciding to join him in Malgudi. Krishna is initially frightened by his new state of affairs, but he soon finds that his love for both his wife and child grows deeper than he could have imagined.’Mr. Narayan has repeatedly been compared with Chekhov. Ordinarily such comparisons are gratuitous and strained, but in this case there are such clear and insistent echoes that any careful reader will be aware of them. There is that sense of rightness which transcends mere structure. There is the inexplicable blending of tragedy and humor. Most of all, there is a brooding awareness of fate which makes the story seem not authored, but merely translated.’ J.F. Muehl, Saturday Review’ Narayan does not deal in exemplary fates, and the Western novel’s machinery of retribution is far too grandiose for him…
. In Narayan’s world, scores are not settled but dissolved, recycled, restated. ‘Both of us will shed our forms soon and perhaps we could meet again, who knows? So goodbye for the present.’ These are the concluding words for the novel A Tiger for Malgudi, but they constitute a universal epilogue one could append to most of Narayan’s fiction.’ Russell Davies, Times Literary Supplement

Mr Sampath

‘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 GreeneOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief.’The experience of reading one of his novels is…
comparable to one’s first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness like one’s own reflection seen in a green twilight.’ Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune’Narayan’s limits are meticulously imposed and observed but his humor and compassion come from a deep universal well, with the result that he has transformed his imaginary township of Malgudi into a bubbling parish of the world.’ Christopher Wordsworth, Observer

The Financial Expert

In The Financial Expert, R. K. Narayan once again transports readers to the southern Indian town of Malgudi. This story centers around the life and pursuits of Margayya, a man of many hopes but few resources, who spends his time under the banyan tree offering expert financial advice to those willing to pay for his knowledge. Margayya’s rags to riches story brings forth the rich imagery of Indian life with the absorbing details and vivid storytelling that are Narayan’s trademarks. ‘The novels of R. K. Narayan are the best I have read in any language for a long time.’ Amit Roy, Daily Telegraph ‘The experience of reading one of his novels is…
comparable to one’s first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples.’ Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune Book Review ‘The hardest of all things for a novelist to communicate is the extraordinary ordinariness of most human happiness…
. Jane Austen, Soseki, Chekhov: a few bring it off. Narayan is one of them.’ Francis King, Spectator

Waiting for the Mahatma

‘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’The experience of reading one of his novels is…
comparable to one’s first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness like one’s own reflection seen in a green twilight.’ Margaret Parton, New Herald Tribune Book Review’The hardest of all things for a novelist to communicate is the extraordinary ordinariness of most human happiness…
. Jane Austen, Soseki, Chekhov: a few bring it off. Narayan is one of them.’ Francis King, Spectator’The novels of R.K. Narayan are the best I have read in any language for a long time.’ Amit Roy, Daily Telegraph

The Man-eater of Malgudi

This is the story of Nataraj, who earns his living as a printer in the little world of Malgudi, an imaginary town in South India. Nataraj and his close friends, a poet and a journalist, find their congenial days disturbed when Vasu, a powerful taxidermist, moves in with his stuffed hyenas and pythons, and brings his dancing women up the printer’s private stairs. When Vasu, in search of larger game, threatens the life of a temple elephant that Nataraj has befriended, complications ensue that are both laughable and tragic.

Malgudi Days

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.’ 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.

A Tiger for Malgudi

A venerable tiger looks back over his life from cubhood and early days roaming wild in the jungle. Trapped into a miserable circus career he is then sold into films co starring with a Tarzan until, finding the human world too brutish and bewildering, he makes a dramatic bid for freedom.

The Dark Room

‘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 GreeneOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief.’The experience of reading one of his novels is…
comparable to one’s first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness like one’s own reflection seen in a green twilight.’ Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune

The Guide

Formerly India’s most corrupt tourist guide, Raju just released from prison seeks refuge in an abandoned temple. Mistaken for a holy man, he plays the part and succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju s newfound sanctity to the test. Narayan s most celebrated novel, The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country s highest literary honor.

The Painter of Signs

For Raman the sign painter, life is a familiar and satisfying routine. A man of simple, rational ways, he lives with his pious aunt and prides himself on his creative work. But all that changes when he meets Daisy, a thrillingly independent young woman who wishes to bring birth control to the area. Hired to create signs for her clinics, Raman finds himself smitten by a love he cannot understand, much less avoid and soon realizes that life isn’t so routine anymore. Set in R. K. Narayan’s fictional city of Malgudi, The Painter of Signs is a wry, bittersweet treasure.

The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata, together with the other great Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana, embodies much of the cultural and religious heritage of India. This prose version of the epic elegantly narrates the great war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, and tells of the warriors, kings, saints, and goddesses caught up in the romance and drama of family intrigue. With diversity of plots and themes including the philosophical teachings of the Bhagavad Gita The Mahabharata has entertained and influenced Indian audiences for nearly 2,000 years. El Mahabharata, junto con el otro gran poema pico S nscrito, el Ramayana, representa mucha de la herencia cultural y religiosa de la India. Esta brillante interpretaci n que viene abreviada y en prosa, narra la gran guerra entre los Kauravas y los Pandavas, y evoca los guerreros, reyes, santos y dioses que hicieron papeles en este drama c smico monumental. Con su diversidad de tramas y temas incluyendo las ense anzas filos ficas del Bhagavada Gita el Mahabharata ha entretenido e influido al p blico de la India desde hace hasta 2,000 a os.

The Abduction of Sita

A hero must save the woman he loves. Ravana, the Supreme Lord, has enslaved all the gods. Although he now rules the world, he cannot resist a beautiful woman. When he catches a glimpse of the princess Sita, he falls under her spell and steals her away. Her beloved husband, Rama, will do anything to get her back. With the help of the brave monkey Hanuman, he journeys across the world to find her. But the evil Ravana will not give up Sita without a fight.

Gods Demons and Others

Following in the footsteps of the storytellers of his native India, R. K. Narayan has produced his own versions of tales taken from the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. Carefully selecting those stories which include the strongest characters, and omitting the theological or social commentary that would have drawn out the telling, Narayan informs these fascinating myths with his urbane humor and graceful style.’Mr. Narayan gives vitality and an original viewpoint to the most ancient of legends, lacing them with his own blend of satire, pertinent explanation and thoughtful commentary.’ Santha Rama Rau, New York Times’Narayan’s narrative style is swift, firm, graceful, and lucid…
thoroughly knowledgeable, skillful, entertaining. One could hardly hope for more.’ Rosanne Klass, Times Literary Supplement

Under the Banyan Tree

This is an enchanting collection from India’s foremost storyteller, rich in wry, warmly observed characters from every walk of Indian life merchants, beggars, herdsmen, rogues all of whose lives are microcosms of the human experience. Like Nambi in the title story, Narayan has the mesmeric ability to spellbind his audience. This he achieves with a masterful combination of economy and rhythm, creating haunting images and a variety of settings to evoke a unique paradox of reality and folklore.

The Grandmother’s Tale

There is no better introduction to R.K. Narayan than this remarkable collection of stories celebrating work that spans five decades. Characters include a storyteller whose magical source of tales dries up, a love stricken husband who is told by astrologers he must sleep with a prostitute to save his dying wife, a pampered child who discovers that his beloved uncle may be an impostor or even a murderer. Standing supreme amid this rich assortment of stories is the title novella. Told by the narrator’s grandmother, the tale recounts the adventures of her mother, married at seven and then abandoned, who crosses the subcontinent to extract her husband from the hands of his new wife. Her courage is immense and her will implacable but once her mission is completed, her independence vanishes. Gentle irony, wryly drawn characters, and themes at once Indian and universal mark these humane stories, which firmly establish Narayan as one of the world’s preeminant storytellers.

The Ramayana

A sweeping tale of abduction, battle, and courtship played out in a universe of deities and demons, The Ramayana is familiar to virtually every Indian. Although the Sanskrit original was composed by Valmiki around the fourth century BC, poets have produced countless versions in different languages. Here, drawing on the work of an eleventh century poet called Kamban, Narayan employs the skills of a master novelist to re create the excitement he found in the original. A luminous saga made accessible to new generations of readers, The Ramayana can be enjoyed for its spiritual wisdom, or as a thrilling tale of ancient conflict.

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