R. K. Narayan. The Guide.
Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan # 1, Vellalar Street, Pursavakkom, Madras, India.
"I'd be quite happy if no more is claimed from me than being just a story-teller. Only the story matters, that is all. If readers read more significance into my stories than was meant originally, then that's the reader's understanding of things. But if a story is in tune completely with the truth of life, truth as I perceive it, then it will be automatically significant."
Among many of Indian writers in English, R.K. Narayan has a special place in Indian history. As a novelist, he maintained India's essence in all his works rather than adopting traditional western style.
Similar to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Narayan adopted his own way of creating his own fictional town called Malgudi, imitating typical south Indian city, His short story collection Malgudi Days took place in this exciting city of Malgudi. Some of his other novels too were written having Malgudi in mind.
He also travelled to United States in 1956 at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. He began his career with writing short stories which were appeared mostly in The Hindu and also worked for some time as the Mysore correspondent for Justice, a Madras-based newspaper. His first work Swami and Friends was delayed for lack of publishing support.Graham Greene, through his mutual friend,was so much moved by Narayan's new work and he supported it for publishing. After this novel, a stream of novels based on Malgudi flourished.
His characters are like Charles Dickens model, imitate real world character's mind set, typical South Indian characters. This makes his novels loved my Indians. Later his novels became popular world wide.
He wrote his own life history: autobiography, he named it as My Days. A memoir, is an autobiography of R.K. Narayan. My Days is a beautifully compiled book that would otherwise seem like any other of Narayan's novels, until one realises that it's an actual narration of his life and his childhood.
The Guide : This novel made him so famous and popular.It was picturized in Hindi and later in other language. The book which begins as a comic look at the life of a rogue, but evolves into something quite different towards the end. This is also Narayan's Malgudi Novel. Novel starts with the hero Raju narrating his story.
I never knew R.K.Narayan, until my graduation, where my Professor introduced him to me as an Indian writer of English. I started reading his work like, Swami and Friends, Malgudi Days , My Days, The Dark Room, The Vendor of Sweets and Waiting for the Mahatma . Really it shows a new dimension to Indian writing in English. We read many novels of western style where we come across western names for all characters and places etc.Normally we never see our own city names in English novels.