Early life R. K. Narayan was born in a
Tamil Brahmin family on 10 October 1906 in
Madras (now Chennai,
Tamil Nadu),
British India. He was one of eight children; six sons and two daughters. Narayan was second among the sons; his younger brother Ramachandran later became an
editor at
Gemini Studios, and the youngest brother
Laxman became a cartoonist. During this time, his best friends and playmates were a peacock and a mischievous
monkey. 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. According to Laxman, the family mostly conversed in English, and grammatical errors on the part of Narayan and his siblings were frowned upon. 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
Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School. Narayan was an avid reader, and his early literary diet included
Dickens,
Wodehouse,
Arthur Conan Doyle and
Thomas Hardy. When he was twelve years old, Narayan participated in a pro-independence march, for which he was reprimanded by his uncle; the family was apolitical and considered all governments wicked. Narayan moved to
Mysore to live with his family when his father was transferred to the Maharaja's College High School. The well-stocked library at the school and his father's own 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. It took Narayan four years to obtain his bachelor's degree, a year longer than usual. 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; however, he quit in protest when the headmaster of the school asked him to substitute for the physical training master. 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 for English newspapers and magazines. Although the writing did not pay much (his income for the first year was nine rupees and twelve annas), he had a regular life and few needs, and his family and friends respected and supported his unorthodox choice of career. In 1930, Narayan wrote his first novel,
Swami and Friends, an effort ridiculed by his uncle and rejected by a string of publishers. While vacationing at his sister's house in
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. The publishers were thrilled to have a
Brahmin Iyer in Narayan espousing their cause. The job brought him in contact with a wide variety of people and issues. Earlier, Narayan had sent the manuscript of
Swami and Friends to a friend at
Oxford, and about this time, the friend showed the manuscript to
Graham Greene. Greene recommended the book to his publisher, and it was finally published in 1935. The book was semi-autobiographical and built upon many incidents from his own childhood. Reviews were favourable but sales were few. Narayan's next novel
The Bachelor of Arts (1937), was inspired in part by his experiences at college, and dealt with the theme of a rebellious adolescent transitioning to a rather well-adjusted adult; it was published by a different publisher, again at the recommendation of Greene. 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, and was published by yet another publisher; this book also received good reviews. 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. Narayan's mentor and friend
Graham Greene was instrumental in getting publishers for Narayan's first four books including the semi-autobiographical trilogy of
Swami and Friends,
The Bachelor of Arts and
The English Teacher. In his first three books, Narayan highlights the problems with certain socially accepted practices. The first book has Narayan focusing on the plight of students, punishments of caning in the classroom, and the associated shame. The concept of horoscope-matching in
Hindu marriages and the emotional toll it levies on the bride and groom is covered in the second book. In the third book, Narayan addresses the concept of a wife putting up with her husband's antics and attitudes. Rajam died because of
typhoid in 1939. Her death affected Narayan deeply and he remained depressed for a long time. He never remarried in his life; 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. This book, like his first two books, is autobiographical, but more so, and completes an unintentional thematic trilogy following
Swami and Friends and
The Bachelor of Arts. In subsequent interviews, Narayan acknowledges that
The English Teacher was almost entirely an autobiography, albeit with different names for the characters and the change of setting in Malgudi; he also explains that the emotions detailed in the book reflected his own at the time of Rajam's death. Bolstered by some of his successes, in 1940, Narayan tried his hand at a journal,
Indian Thought. With the help of his uncle, a car salesman, Narayan managed to get more than a thousand subscribers in
Madras city alone. However, the venture did not last long due to Narayan's inability to manage it, and it ceased publication within a year. His first collection of short stories,
Malgudi Days, was published in November 1942, followed by
The English Teacher in 1945. In between, being cut off from England due to the war, Narayan started his own publishing company, naming it (again)
Indian Thought Publications; the publishing company was a success and is still active, now managed by his granddaughter. While Narayan's writings often bring out the anomalies in social structures and views, he was himself a traditionalist; in February 1956, Narayan arranged his daughter's wedding following all orthodox
Hindu rituals. After the wedding, Narayan began travelling occasionally, continuing to write at least 1500 words a day even while on the road.
The Guide was written while he was visiting the United States in 1956 on the Rockefeller Fellowship. While in the U.S., Narayan maintained a daily journal that was to later serve as the foundation for his book
My Dateless Diary. Around this time, on a visit to England, Narayan met his friend and mentor Graham Greene for the first and only time. Occasionally, Narayan was known to give form to his thoughts by way of essays, some published in newspapers and journals, others not.
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. Also included in this collection was an essay about the writing of
The Guide. Narayan's next novel,
The Man-Eater of Malgudi, was published in 1961. The book was reviewed as having a narrative that is a classical art form of comedy, with delicate control. Once again, after the book launch, Narayan took to travelling abroad. In an earlier essay, he had written about the Americans wanting to understand spirituality from him, and during this visit, Swedish-American actress
Greta Garbo accosted him on the topic, despite his denial of any knowledge. This year, Narayan travelled to England, where he received the first of his honorary doctorates from the
University of Leeds. 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. Meanwhile, Narayan remembered a promise made to his dying uncle in 1938, and started translating the
Kamba Ramayanam to English.
The Ramayana was published in 1973, after five years of work. 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 Painter of Signs is a bit longer than a novella and makes a marked change from Narayan's other works, as he deals with hitherto unaddressed subjects such as sex, although the development of the protagonist's character is very similar to his earlier creations.
The Mahabharata was published in 1978.
The later years Narayan was commissioned by the government of
Karnataka to write a book to promote tourism in the state. The work was published as part of a larger government publication in the late 1970s He thought it deserved better, and republished it as
The Emerald Route (Indian Thought Publications, 1980). The book contains his personal perspective on the local history and heritage, but being bereft of his characters and creations, it misses his enjoyable narrative. 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. During this time, he also published two collections of short stories:
Malgudi Days (1982), a revised edition including the original book and some other stories, and
Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories, a new collection. In 1987, he completed ''
A Writer's Nightmare'', another collection of essays about topics as diverse as the caste system, Nobel prize winners, love, and monkeys. The collection included essays he had written for newspapers and magazines since 1958. Living alone in Mysore, Narayan developed an interest in agriculture. He bought an acre of agricultural 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 a typical afternoon stroll, he would stop every few steps to greet and converse with shopkeepers and others, most likely gathering material for his next book. In 1980, Narayan was nominated to the
Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, for his contributions to literature. In 1990, he published his next novel,
The World of Nagaraj, also set in Malgudi. Narayan's age shows in this work as he appears to skip narrative details that he would have included if this were written earlier in his career. Soon after he finished the novel, Narayan fell ill and moved to Madras to be close to his daughter's family. A few years after his move, in 1994, his daughter died of cancer and his granddaughter Bhuvaneswari (Minnie) started taking care of him in addition to managing
Indian Thought Publications. 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. Despite his fondness of meeting and talking to people, he stopped giving interviews. The apathy towards interviews was the result of an interview with
Time, after which Narayan had to spend a few days in the hospital, as he was dragged around the city to take photographs that were never used in the article. ==Literary review==