Author: R K Narayan
Editor(s): Syd Harrex
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1990
Language: English
Pages: 142
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0140128441
Description
Forty essay, travel pieces, character sketches and short stories from India’s greatest novelist, the majority collected here for the first time. The three sections of the book provide a rare glimpse into R K Narayan’s beginnings as a writer and his evolution into a world-renowned novelist.
Most importantly, each essay and story is in itself a triumph of Narayan’s genius as a close and perceptive observer of the small and ordinary things of life… Finally, taken together, the pieces in this collection (on crowds, films, restaurants, clothes, cats, and English language and school-children among others) give the reader fresh insights into the distinctive aspects of the Indian South which finally achieved immortality in the fictional world of Malgudi.
Contents
Introduction
THE FICTION-WRITER
The World of the Story-teller
Introduction to The Financial Expert
The Problem of the Indian Writer
English in India
Toasted English
The Indian in America
After the Raj
SHORT ESSAYS
The Crowd
Our Dress
Noise
Coffee
Behind One Another
The Unseen Shop
On Films
Restaurants
Glimpses of Thumbi
Thumbi’s Schooling
The Election Game
Rice and Hospitality
Everest Reactions
Cruelty to Children
The Postcard
The Cat
Red-taping Culture
Family Doctor
Causerie
MALGUDI SKETCHES AND STORIES
Over a Mountain Range
Sringeri
Kaidala
Devaraya Durga
Mysore City
The House I Built
The Indian Theatre
The Cold Fruit
The Mirror (An Ancient Tale)
Musical Commerce
A Breach of Promise
The Magic Beard
Around a Temple
The Magic Cure
The Image