Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami also known as R. K. Narayan was a twentieth century Indian author. He is considered the prominent figure among his contemporaries, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, who first wrote Indian literature in English. Additionally, he is praised for introducing this innovative genre to other writers. Most of his works are set in, Malgudi, a fictional South Indian town.
Born on October 10, 1906, in Madras (Chennai), he was the son of a school headmaster. He spent most of his childhood under his maternal grandmother’s supervision and care, as his father’s job required him to move from places to places frequently. Out of boredom, he found his playmates in a peacock and a monkey. His family mostly conversed in English and his grandmother not only took care of him but also educated him. She equipped him with the worldly wisdom and taught him arithmetic, Sanskrit, mythology and classical Indian music. Additionally, he attended numerous schools in Madras, including Lutheran Mission School and C.R.C. High School.
Narayan was a voracious reader of with an insatiable appetite for the literary works of Wodehouse, Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan Doyle. As he moved with his father to Mysore, he took advantage of the well-stocked library at the college he father taught at. During this time, he applied at a university but failed to clear the aptitude test. As a result, Narayan stayed at home for a full year and he devoted that time to writing and reading avidly. Eventually, he earned a Bachelor degree from Maharaja College of Mysore. Subsequent to his brief and disappointing experience as a teacher, Naryan came to realize that his true potential lay in writing rather than any other field. He wrote a book review of Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England, which is marked as his first serious writing. Occasionally, he wrote pieces for English newspapers and magazines. He continued to pursue writing, even though his career did not hold much promise in financial terms. After getting married to his beloved, Narayan landed a job as a reporter for a newspaper advocating non-Brahmins’ rights, The Justice.
In 1930, Narayan made an attempt at novel writing with Swami and Friends. It was his first novel featuring the fictional Malgudi town set in British India. The novel illustrates the adventures of a group of young schoolboys, ignoring the sociopolitical climate in India under British rule. Although the book is recently declared as one of the best English novels to be written by an Indian, it received a host of rejection slips when Narayan tried to have it published the first time. English writer, Graham Greene played a significant role in the publication of the book. Subsequently, the author turned it into a trilogy writing sequels to the novel.
Narayan’s Bachelor of Arts, traces the transition in the lives of rebellious youth to being mature adults. The Dark Room, highlights the predominant issue in a patriarch Indian society that is domestic discords. It portrays the role of a man and a woman in a marriage as being oppressor and oppressed. Moreover, his other novels manifest his discontent over the irrational Hindu ritual of matchmaking. His other notable works include, The Financial Expert, The Guide, Malgudi Days and Gods, Demons and Others. Narayan received prestigious accolades including the Sahitya Akademi Award and AC Benson Medal. He died in 2001, at the age of 94, in Chennai.