Its the birthday of novelist and short-story writer R.K. (Rasipuram Krishnaswami) Narayan (books by this author), born in Madras, India (1906). Narayans first book was Swami and Friends (1935), which, like many of this other books, is set in a fictional town of Malgudi. He said: I had an idea of a railway station, a very small railway station, a wayside station. Youve seen that kind of thing, with a platform, trees and a stationmaster [...] a street, a depot, a school or a temple at any spot in a little world [...] with the result that I am unable to escape Malgudi. He stayed contentedly in his home country, venturing abroad only rarely. He seldom addressed political issues or tried to explore the cutting edge of fiction. He was a traditional teller of tales, a creator of realistic fiction that is often gentle, humorous, and warm rather than hard-hitting or profound. Graham Greene greatly admired R.K. Narayan and helped publish his works in Britain. The remarkable fact about their relationship was that Greene and Narayan met only once, briefly, in London in 1964. The friendship began in 1934 when Greene happened to come across a manuscript of Swami and Friends. Greene was impressed and passed it on to publisher Hamish Hamilton. He also began a correspondence with R.K. Narayan. The correspondence lasted until Greenes death, with both of them taking around 15 years to switch from Dear Mr. Narayan and Graham Greene, to Dear Narayan and Graham.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 10:48:17 +0000
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