Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami popularly
known as R.K. Narayan was born 10 October, 1906 in Madras
(now Chennai ), British India. He was an Indian writer known
for his works set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi.
He was leading author of early Indian Literature in English
along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.
LIFE AND CAREER
R.K. Narayan was one of eight children; six sons and two
daughters. Narayan was second among the sons. 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.
His grandmother gave him the nickname of Kunjappa, a name
that stuck to him in family circles. She taught him arithmetic,
mythology, classical Indian music and Sanskrit. While living
with his grandmother, Narayan studied at a succession of
schools in Madras, including the Lutheran Mission School in
Purasawalkam, C.R.C. High School, and the Christian College
High School. Narayan was an avid reader, and his early literary
diet included Dickens, Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and
Thomas Hardy. 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 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. 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
which he quit soon after. The experience made Narayan
realise that the only career for him was in writing, and he
decided to stay at home and write novels. His first published
work was a book review of Development of Maritime Laws of
17th-Century England. Subsequently, he started writing the
occasional local interest story of English newspapers and
magazines. In 1930, Narayan wrote his first novel, Swami and
Friends. With the book, Narayan created Malgudi, a town that
creatively reproduced the social sphere of the country. At
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. Following his marriage,
Narayan became a reporter for a Madras-based paper called
The Justice, dedicated to the rights of non-Brahmins. Earlier,
Narayan had sent the manuscript of Swami and Friends to a
friend at Oxford, and about this time, the friend showed the
manuscript of Swami and Friends to Graham Greene. Greene
recommended the book to his publisher, and it was finally
published in 1935. Narayan's next novel The Bachelor of Arts
(1937), was inspired in part by his experiences at college. His
third novel, The Dark Room (1938) was about domestic
disharmony, showcasing the man as the oppressor and the
woman as the victim within a marriage. 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. In the first three books, Narayan highlights the
problems with certain socially accepted practices. Rajam died
of typhoid in 1939. Her death affected Narayan deeply and he
remained depressed for a long time. 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. In subsequent interviews, Narayan acknowledges
that The English Teacher was almost entirely an
autobiography and he also explains that the emotions
detailed in the book reflected his own at the time of Rajam's
death. In 1940 Narayan tried his hand at a journal, Indian
Thought. His first collection of short stories, Malgudi Days,
was published in November 1942, followed by The English
Teacher in 1945. Narayan started his own publishing
company, naming it Indian Thought Publications. Soon,
Narayan's books started selling well and in 1948 he started
building his own house on the outskirts of Mysore which was
completed in 1953. His next effort, Mr.Sampath, was the first
book exhibiting this modified approach. 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. 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. In 1953, his works were published in the United
States for the first time, by Michigan State University Press.
He was himself a traditionalist and in February 1956, Narayan
arranged his daughter’s wedding following all orthodox Hindu
rituals. After the wedding, Narayan began travelling
occasionally. The Guide was written while he was visiting the
United States in 1956 on the Rockefeller Fellowship. On his
return to India, The Guide was published; the book is the most
representative of Narayan’s writing skills and elements,
ambivalent in expression, coupled with a riddle-like
conclusion. Next Sunday (1960), was a collection of such
conversational essays, and his first work to be published as a
book. Soon after that, My Dateless Diary, describing
experiences from his 1956 visit to the United States, was
published. Narayan’s next novel, The Man-Eater of Malgudi,
was published in1961. The book was reviewed as having a
narrative that is a classical art form of comedy, with delicate
control. By this time Narayan had also achieved significant
success, both literary and financial. With his success, both
within India and abroad, Narayan started writing columns for
magazines and newspapers including The Hindu and The
Atlantic. In 1964, Narayan published his first mythological
work, Gods, Demons and Others, a collection of rewritten and
translated short stories from Hindu epics. 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. 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. He started translating the
Kamba Ramayanam to English which was published in 1973.
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 Mahabharata was published in 1978. Narayan was
commissioned by the government of Karnataka to write a
book to promote tourism in the state, which contains his
personal perspective on the local history and heritage. 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. Around
the same time, Narayan’s works were translated to Chinese
for the first time. In 1983, Narayan published his next novel, A
Tiger for Malgudi, about a tiger and its relationship with
humans. His next novel, Talkative Man, published in 1986,
was the tale of an aspiring journalist from Malgudi. In 1987,
he completed A Writer’s Nightmare, another collection of
essays. He was Living alone in Mysore, Narayan developed an
interest in agriculture. He bought an acre of agriculture land
and tried his hand at farming. He was also prone to walking to
the market every afternoon, not so much for buying things,
but to interact with the people. In 1980, Narayan was
nominated to the Rajya Sabha for his contributions to
literature. 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. In 1990, he published his next novel, The
World of Nagaraj, also set in Malgudi. Soon after he finished
the novel, Narayan fell ill and moved to Madras to be close to
his daughter’s family. In 1994, his daughter died of cancer and
his granddaughter Bhuvaneswari (Minnie) started taking care
of him. 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.
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. 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. However, Narayan did not get better and
never started the novel. He died on 13 May 2001, in Chennai
at the age of 94.
AWARDS AND HONOURS
Narayan won numerous awards during the course of his
literary career. His first major award was in 1958, the
Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide. When the book was
made into a film, he received the Filmfare Award for the
best story. In 1964, he received the Padma Bhusha. In 1980,
he was awarded the AC Benson Medal , Royal Society of
Literature, of which he was an honorary member. In 1982
he was elected an honorary member of the American
Academy of Arts and Letters. He was nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Literature multiple times, but never won the
honour. Recognition also came in the form of Honorary
doctorates by the University of Leeds (1967), the University
of Mysore (1976) and Delhi University (1973). A year before
his death, in 2001, he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.
LISTS OF WORKS
Novels
Swami and Friends (1935)
The Bachelor of Arts (1937)
The Dark Room (1938)
The English Teacher (1945)
Mr. Sampath (1948)
The Financial Expert (1952)
Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
The Guide (1958)
The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961)
The Vendor of Sweets (1967)
The Painter of Signs (1977)
A Tiger for Malgudi (1983)
Talkative Man (1986)
The World of Nagaraj (1990)
Grandmother's Tale (1992)
Non-fiction
Next Sunday(1960)
My Dateless Diary (1960)
My Days (1973)
Reluctant Guru (1974)
The Emerald Route (1980)
A Writer's Nightmare (1988)
A Story-Teller's World (1989)
The Writerly Life (2001)
Mysore (1944, second edition)
Mythology
Gods, Demons and Others (1964)
The Ramayana (1972)
The Mahabharata (1978)
Short story collections
Malgudi Days (1942)
An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories (1947)
Lawley Road and Other Stories (1956)
A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)
The Grandmother's Tale and Selected Stories (1994)
