R. K. Narayan Biography
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| R. K. Narayan |
R. K. Narayan is a
renowned name among the eminent Indians, writing in English. Though much famed
for his novels in English, he belonged to no famous family and had a humble
origin.
Narayan was born on
10th October in 1906 in Madras (now Chennai). He had his education mainly in
Mysore. There his father Krishnaswami worked as a school teacher. The family
was not well off, but cultivated and Narayan could carry on his college
education.
Narayan was not a good
student. He got his degree rather late at the age of 24 from Maharaja College
of Mysore. Because of the financial hardship of the family, Narayan had to
secure a job soon after his graduation. He worked first as a clerk in the Mysore
Secretariate and thereafter in a village school as a teacher. But neither of
those occupations suited his temperament. He ever had an ambition to become a
writer. So, he gave up his job of the school-teacher and resolved to devote all
his time and energy to writing.
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| R. K. Narayan |
Though rather strange
even to think of a successful Indian writer in English that time, Narayan
ventured boldly and confidently and proved successful ere long. He won soon
name and fame as an Indian author of novels and short stories in English.
Narayan had a happy
marriage and domesticity with a staid, graceful woman Rajam, with whom he fell
in love at first sight. Of course, his happy conjugal life was cut short by the
untimely death of his wife of typhoid, only 5 years after their marriage. He
was deeply shocked and anguished at her sudden death but continued his literary
career upto his old age, with his creative energy and literary skill, still
remaining unaffected in the least.
His collection of
short stories ‘Malgudi Days’ is still popular. It was written in 1942.
Narayan had a quiet
and uneventful life in his home in Mysore amid his widely read impressive
literature.
He passed off on May
13, 2001at the ripe old age of 95.
List
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 (1974), Reluctant
Guru (1974), The Emerald Route (1980), A
Writer's Nightmare (1988), A Story-Teller's World (1989), The
Writerly Life (2002), Mysore (1944, second
edition)
Mythology
Gods,
Demons and Others (1964), The Ramayana (1973), 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)
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