Oct 27, 2010 06:32 AM
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R.K.Narayan
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R.K.Narayan
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R.K.Narayan
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami, or R.K. Narayan as he is popularly known, is perhaps the most widely read Indian novelists writing in English language. His work of fiction includes a series of books about people and their interactions in an imagined town, Malgudi in Southern India. He is one of three leading figures of early Indian literature in English, along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. R.K. Narayan has been credited with bringing Indian literature in English to the rest of the world, and is regarded as one of India's greatest English language novelists.
Henry Graham Greene, an English author, playwright and critique (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991), was instrumental in getting R.K.Narayan’s first four books including the semi-autobiographical trilogy published – Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher. Narayan’s works also include The Financial Expert, hailed as one of the most original works of 1951, and Sahitya Akademi Award winner The Guide, which was adapted for films in Hindi and English languages, and for Broadway. His "Indian Epics Retold" re-narrates the magnificence of Indian mythologies such as Mahabharata and Ramayana.
"There are writers-- Leo Tolstoy and Henry James to name two--whom we hold in awe, writers--Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov--for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect--Joseph 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.
