Malgudi Days - The collection of short stories by R.K.Narayan. I have been reading quite a few things ever since I landed at MDI but Malgudi Days has been a revelation. ! I never thought that short stories could be so good. The use of the words is almost magical. Every story is has a characteristic touch. Each story ends with a positive note with an element of surprise in it.
Malgudi Days is about people of Malgudi, their daily experiences, and their stories narrated by the Author R.K.Narayan.
In Narayan's words himself
Malgudi was an earth-shaking discovery for me, because I had no mind for facts and things like that, which would be necessary in writing about Malgudi or any real place. I first pictured not my town but just the railway station, which was a small platform with a Banyan tree, a station master, and two trains a day, one coming and one going. On Vijayadasami I sat down and wrote the first sentence about my town: The train had just arrived in Malgudi Station. "
R.K. Narayan – brief biography
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Naranayanaswami was born in 1906. R.K. Narayan spent his early years in Madras (Chennai) before moving to Mysore. He got his Bachelor’s Degree from University of Mysore.
R.K. Narayan started his literally career with short stories in The Hindu (N. Ram the editor at The Hindu happens to be a very good friend of R. K. Narayan).
He won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1961, the first time an award was given to a work in English for The Guide. In 1980, R. K. Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson award by the Royal Society of Literature and was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1989 he was made a member of the Rajya Sabha (the non-elective House of Parliament in India). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Guide (1958).
His autobiographies are titled My Days and My Dateless Dairy.
R. K. Narayan – published works (copied and edited from link http://www.meghdutam.com/authors/narayan.shtml)
· 1935: Swami and friends
· 1937: Bachelor of Arts
· 1938: The Dark Room
· 1939: Mysore
· 1945: The English Teacher
· 1947: An Astrologer's Day , and other stories
· 1949: Mr. Sampath - The Printer of Malgudi
· 1952: The Financial Expert
· 1953: Grateful to Life and Death
· 1955: Waiting for the Mahatma
· 1956: Lawley Road , and other stories
· 1958: The Guide
· 1960: Next Sunday : sketches and essays
· 1961: The Man-Eater of Malgudi
· 1964: My Dateless Diary : An American Journey
· 1965: Gods, Demons, and others
· 1967: The Vendor of Sweets
· 1970: A Horse and two Goats , stories
· 1972: The Ramayana; a shortened modern prose version
· 1974: My Days
· 1974: Reluctant Guru
· 1976: The Painter of Signs
· 1978: The Mahabharata: a shortened modern prose version
· 1980: The Emerald Route (with sketches by his brother R.K. Laxman)
· 1982: Malgudi Days
· 1983: A Tiger for Malgudi
· 1985: Under the Banyan Tree and other stories
· 1986: Talkative Man
· 1988: A Writer's Nightmare : selected essays
· 1989: A Story-Teller's World : Stories, Essays, Sketches
· 1990: The World of Nagaraj
· 1992: Malgudi Landscapes : the best of R.K. Narayan
· 1993: The Grandmother's Tale : three novellas
· 1993: Salt & sawdust : stories and table talk
Links
http://www.iit.edu/~jainank/reading/db/narayan/narayan.html http://www.meghdutam.com/authors/narayan.shtml
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