Memories of Malgudi brings together five unforgettable novels from the Narayan corpus. The Dark Room, the first novel in this collection, is the story of the marital discord between Savitri, a traditional Hindu wife, and Ramani, her husband. The English Teacher is about another young couple: Krishna and his wife, Susila. Their world is full of love and laughter, but when Susila passes away, Krishna must deal with the tragic blow and find a reason to go on living. Again, in The World of Nagaraj, Narayan’s final novel, Nagaraj’s life of small comforts is rudely interrupted by the arrival of his nephew Tim, and he struggles to fend off the turbulence which threatens to disrupt his world forever. Sriram, the hero of Waiting for the Mahatma, is in love with the enchanting Bharati, but her primary loyalty is to Gandhiji and his ideals. Sriram becomes a follower of the Mahatma himself, but finds himself adapting the great man’s ideas to suit his own petty ends. And in The Guide, Narayan’s award-winning novel, Raju the guide takes a roller-coaster ride through life—he falls in love with the beautiful dancer Rosie, seduces her away from her husband, transforms her into a celebrity but then falls out with her. Finally, through a series of ironical events, he becomes a well-respected holy man. The last in Penguin India’s series of collectors’ editions of R.K. Narayan’s novels, Memories of Malgudi showcases the best of the master storyteller’s oeuvre.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR R.K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan was born in Madras in south India and educated in Mysore which had also been his home for over half-a-century now. Narayan was one of India’s most distinguished writers at work today. Through his several novels and short stories, he had created the enchanting fictional world of Malgudi which has captivated his readers throughout the world and, more recently, millions of Indian television viewers who saw TV adaptations of several of his Malgudi stories. Narayan’s books are regularly published in USA, UK and India and have also been widely translated into several European and Indian languages. His novel The Guide (1958) won the Sahitya Akademi Award, India’s highest literary honour. In 1980, Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature and in 1982 he was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1986, he was nominated for a 6-year term to Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Indian Parliament in recognition of his outstanding literary stature. Apart from The Mahabharata, Narayan had also retold the other great Indian epic The Ramayana, as well as a selection of Indian legends in Gods, Demons and Others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR S. Krishnan
S. Krishnan taught English literature at Madras Christian College and at Annamalai University. He spent many years with the United States Information Agency in their educational and cultural programmes. He is now a weekly columnist for the Hindu, consulting editor with the Indian Review of Books and senior editor of Shruti, a music and dance magazine. Krishnan has edited several volumes of R.K. Narayan’s writings for Penguin Books. He lives in Chennai.
There are no reviews yet.