Narayan, R(asipuram) K(rishnaswamy)
, highly acclaimed Indian author, born in Madras (now Chennai). His first
novel, Swami and Friends (1935), was based on his experiences as a village
schoolteacher. Like his later fiction The English Teacher (1945) and The
Vendor of Sweets (1967), it is a gently humorous, elegantly crafted picture
of daily life in a fictitious southern Indian town. Narayan's other novels
include Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater
of Malgudi (1961), and A Tiger for Malgudi (1983).
A Horse and Two Goats (1970), Malgudi Days (1982), and Grandmother's Tale
(1994) are collections of Narayan's short stories and contain simple,
yet insightful, character portrayals that often reveal subtle ironies.
He also revived the classic Indian epics The Ramayana (1972) and The Mahabharata
(1978), condensing the lengthy works and setting them in modern surroundings.
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