R. K. Narayan
Overview
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
: ) (was an Indian author whose works of fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
include a series of books about people and their interactions in an imagined town in India called Malgudi. He is one of three leading figures of early Indian literature
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages....
in English, along with Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R.K...
and Raja Rao
Raja Rao
Raja Rao was an Indian writer of English language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in Hinduism. Raja Rao's semi-autobiographical novel, The Serpent and the Rope , is a story of a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India...
. He is credited with bringing Indian literature in English to the rest of the world, and is regarded as one of India's greatest English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ists.
Narayan broke through with the help of his mentor and friend, Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, who was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan’s first four books, including the semi-autobiographical trilogy of Swami and Friends
Swami and Friends
Swami and Friends is the first of a trilogy of novels written by R. K. Narayan, a celebrated English language novelist from India. The novel, which is also Narayan's first, is set in pre-independence days in India, in a fictional town called Malgudi...
, The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher
The English Teacher
The English Teacher is a 1945 novel written by R. K. Narayan. This is the third and final part in the series, preceded by Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts ....
.
Unanswered Questions
