R K Narayan (1966–2001) was an Indian writer and novelist. He was one of the famous writers of early Indian literature in English, like Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand. He was also a short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, memoirist and an editor. He mainly wrote fiction, non-fiction and mythology. His first published work was a book review of the development of the maritime laws of 17th-century England. His first novel was ‘Swami and Friends’ (1935), and his last work was ‘Grandmother’s Tale’ (1923). Her written works include topics such as myth, tradition and modernity, ancient India and the status of women in society. RK Narayan died on 13 May 2001.
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was born on Wednesday, 10 October 1906 (age 94 at the time of death) in Madras, British India (now, Chennai, India). Living with his grandmother, RK Narayan attended several schools in Madras, such as the Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam, CRC High School and Christian College High School. After completing high school, Narayan could not pass the university entrance examination and spent a year reading and writing at home. In 1926, he successfully passed the examination and enrolled in the BA program in English at Maharaja’s College, Mysore. It took him four years to complete his bachelor’s degree. After his father’s death in 1937, he took a job as a school teacher for a short time. He was aware of the value of education and criticized the educational system imposed by colonialism. In his novel ‘The English Teacher’, while talking about the education system he said,
This teaching has made us a nation of fools; We were strangers to our own culture and followers of another culture, eating garbage for food. , , What about our own roots? , , , I am against the whole methodology and approach of the system, the education system which makes us idiots, cultural idiots, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.
Family
RK Narayan belonged to a Tamil Brahmin family.
parents and siblings
His father was a school headmaster, and due to frequent transfers in his job, RK Narayan was sent to his grandmother, Parvati, who taught him arithmetic, mythology and Sanskrit. His grandmother used to call him by the nickname Kunjappa. RK Narayan’s father died in 1937. RK Narayan was the third child in a family of eight children. His youngest brother, Lakshman, became a cartoonist, and his younger brother, Ramachandran, became an editor at Gemini Studios.
RK Narayan and his family
wife and children
RK Narayan fell in love with a 15-year-old girl, Rajam, while visiting his sister’s house in Coimbatore. Narayan married her in 1934. Rajam died of typhoid in 1939. RK Narayan and Rajam had a daughter named Hema.
RK Narayan with his wife
RK Narayan with his wife and daughter
RK Narayan with his daughter
signature/autograph
livelihood
In 1934, RK Narayan became a reporter for the Madras-based newspaper The Justice, which was devoted to the rights of non-Brahmins. RK Narayan’s next novel was The Bachelor of Arts (1937). Her third novel, The Dark Room (1938), dealt with the theme of domestic strife. His perspective of seeing the world was unique. He once said in his book ‘The Guide’-
In a world where we are accustomed to rivalry over possession, authority and borders, and people quarreling over the issue of “ours” or “mine, not yours”, it is strange to see two people arguing over whose state it is. No, and insisted: “Yours, not mine.”
RK Narayan wrote in his book ‘Malgudi Days’,
We are a flawed, weak species, he reminds us gently in these pages, turning his attention clearly and without emotion to those who will stoop, who will stop at nothing. What makes us care about such often pitiful characters is that they, like most of us, are striving, motivated by the hope of a slightly better life.
Novel
- Swami and Friends (1935, Hamish Hamilton)
- Bachelor of Arts (1937, Thomas Nelson)
- The Dark Room (1938, Ayer)
- The English Teacher (1945, Ayer)
- Mr. Sampath (1948, Iyer)
- The Financial Expert (1952, Methuen)
- Waiting for the Mahatma (1955, Methuen)
- The Guide (1958, Methuen)
- The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961, Viking)
- The Sweet Seller (1967, The Bodley Head)
- The Painter of Sciences (1977, Heinemann)
- A Tiger for Malgudi (1983, Heinemann)
- Goblin Man (1986, Heinemann)
- Nagraj’s World (1990, Heinemann)
- Grandmother’s Story (1992, Indian Thought Publications)
non-fiction books
- Next Sunday (1960, Indian Thought Publications)
- My Dateless Diary (1960, Indian Thought Publications)
- The Reluctant Guru (1974, Orient Paperbacks)
- The Emerald Route (1980, Indian Thought Publications)
- A Writer’s Nightmare (1988, Penguin Books)
- A Storyteller’s World (1989, Penguin Books)
- The Writerly Life (2001, Penguin Books India)
- Mysore (1944, 2nd edition, Indian Thought Publications)
mythological books
- Gods, Demons and Others (1964, Viking)
- Ramayan (1972, Chatto and Windus)
- Mahabharata (1978, Heinemann)
short story collection
- Malgudi Days (1942, Indian Thought Publications)
- An Astrologer’s Day and Other Stories (1947, Indian Thought Publications)
- Lolly Road and Other Stories (1956, Indian Thought Publications)
- A Horse and Two Goats (1970)
- Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)
- The Grandmother’s Tale and Selected Stories (1994, Viking)
award
- In 1960, RK Narayan won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book The Guide (1958). Later, this book was made into a film of the same name starring Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman, for which RK Narayan received the Filmfare Award for Best Story.
- RK Narayan was awarded the Padma Bhushan during Republic Day in 1964.
- In 1980, he received the A.C. Benson Medal from the British Royal Society of Literature.
- In 1986, RK Narayan was awarded the Rajyotsava Prashasti by the Government of Karnataka.
- In 2000 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan.
RK Narayan with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru
Death
On 13 May 2001, he died of cardio-respiratory failure at the age of 94 in Chennai.
Facts/General Knowledge
- In 1982, RK Narayan was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
- On RK Narayan’s 108th birthday in 2014, Google featured a doodle of RK Narayan along with his book Malgudi Days.
Google celebrated RK Narayan’s 108th birthday by making a doodle.
- In 2016, RK Narayan’s house, built in 1952 at Yadavagiri, Mysuru, was converted into a museum in his honour.
RK Narayan’s house (now a museum)
- In 1980, RK Narayan was nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
- In 1986, an Indian television series, Malgudi Days, was broadcast on Doordarshan; It was filmed in both English (13 episodes) and Hindi (54 episodes). This television show was based on RK Narayan’s 1943 short story collection of the same title.
- His short stories are often compared to Guy de Maupassant and William Faulkner for their use of an imaginary town, humor and pathos to depict ordinary life.
- RK Narayan’s mentor and friend Graham Greene was instrumental in obtaining a publisher for Narayan’s first four books.
- Miss Malini (1947) was the only film for which RK Narayan wrote the story. Sampath (1952) is an Indian satire film, based on the novel Mr. Sampath (1949) by RK Narayan.
- The National Award-winning Kannada language film Banker Margayya (1983) was based on the novel The Financial Expert (1952) written by RK Narayan.
- In an interview, when asked how he envisioned his work as a writer, he said,
The actual writing of a book may not take much time, but its topic and scope do take time to develop and establish. Of course you don’t treat the story or the characters individually, only as a whole if I can use that slightly pompous word.”
- In 1968, his book The Guide was adapted into a Broadway play and staged at the Hudson Theatre. He was unhappy with the film guide and wrote a column in Life magazine called The Misguided Guide.
- The BBC selected Swami and Friends, the first of a trilogy of novels written by RK Narayan (1906–2001), as one of the 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.
- RK Narayan’s first income from writing was nine rupees twelve annas.
- His first novel, ‘Swami and Friends’, which he wrote in 1930, was rejected by many publishers.
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn