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Over de Auteur

R. K. Narayan was born Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanaswami in Madras, India on October 10, 1906. He graduated from Maharaja College of Mysore with a B.A. degree in 1930. He attempted to teach for a bit but then switched to writing full time. His first book, Swami and Friends, was published in toon meer Britain in 1935. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 30 novels and hundreds of short stories. His other novels included The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher, The Guide, The Financial Expert, The Man Eater of Malgudi, The Vendor of Sweets, and The World of Nagaraj. He was one of the first Indians to write in English and gain international recognition. He received numerous awards including the Padma Bhushan, India's highest prize. He died on May 13, 2001 at the age of 94. (Bowker Author Biography) toon minder

Werken van R. K. Narayan

Malgudi Days (1943) 1,006 exemplaren
The Guide (1958) 949 exemplaren
Swami and Friends (1980) 468 exemplaren
The Painter of Signs (1977) 427 exemplaren
Mahābhārata (R. K. Narayan ed.) (1978) — Redacteur — 365 exemplaren
The English Teacher (1978) 334 exemplaren
De geldschieter (1953) 329 exemplaren
De menseneter van Malgudi (1961) 325 exemplaren
The Vendor of Sweets (1967) 320 exemplaren
A Tiger for Malgudi (1982) 252 exemplaren
The Bachelor of Arts (1937) 240 exemplaren
Waiting for Mahatma (1981) 227 exemplaren
De straten van Malgudi.Verhalen (1985) 196 exemplaren
Gods, Demons, and Others (1964) 161 exemplaren
Talkative Man (1986) 132 exemplaren
Het huis van Nagaraj (1990) 130 exemplaren
My Days (1974) 125 exemplaren
The Dark Room (1978) 119 exemplaren
Zout en zaagsel (1993) 114 exemplaren
Tales from Malgudi (1995) 85 exemplaren
Indian Epics Retold (1995) 75 exemplaren
The Abduction of Sita (2006) 74 exemplaren
Malgudi Omnibus (1994) 66 exemplaren
Malgudi Landscapes (1992) 53 exemplaren
Malgudi Adventures (2003) 48 exemplaren
A Town Called Malgudi (1999) 42 exemplaren
Emerald Route (1977) 35 exemplaren
The Writerly Life (2001) 27 exemplaren
More Tales From Malgudi (1997) 26 exemplaren
A Breath of Lucifer (2011) 24 exemplaren
A Horse and Two Goats (1970) 21 exemplaren
The Very Best of R.K. Narayan (2013) 20 exemplaren
Indian Thought: A Miscellany (1997) — Redacteur — 16 exemplaren
Malgudi: stories (2011) 13 exemplaren
Modern Short Stories 2: 1940-1980 (1982) — Medewerker — 12 exemplaren
Grateful to Life & Death (1953) 11 exemplaren
Lawley Road and Other Stories (1960) 9 exemplaren
Reluctant Guru (1974) 6 exemplaren
Next Sunday 6 exemplaren
The Saint of Sringeri (1977) 2 exemplaren
Guide (2015) 2 exemplaren
Malgudi Days I 2 exemplaren
Malgudi Days II (1999) 2 exemplaren
Mysore 2 exemplaren
Fellow-Feeling [short fiction] (1984) 2 exemplaren
Geen titel 1 exemplaar
MALAGUDI DAYS 1 exemplaar
Rumah Seberang Jalan (2002) 1 exemplaar
Guide 1 exemplaar
MR SAMPATH 1 exemplaar
මගේ කලදවස (2022) 1 exemplaar
The Ramayana 1 exemplaar
MY DAYS 1 exemplaar
Memoires d'un indien du sud (1994) 1 exemplaar
El venedor de dolços (2011) 1 exemplaar
VAZHIKAATTI (2009) 1 exemplaar
Tamil Nadu (1997) 1 exemplaar

Gerelateerde werken

The Oxford Book of Short Stories (1981) — Medewerker — 510 exemplaren
Sudden Fiction International: Sixty Short-Short Stories (1989) — Medewerker — 213 exemplaren
Granta 57: India! The Golden Jubilee (1997) — Medewerker — 202 exemplaren
The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature (2001) — Medewerker — 131 exemplaren
The Treasury of English Short Stories (1985) — Medewerker — 84 exemplaren
The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories (1991) — Medewerker — 75 exemplaren
Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories (1993) — Medewerker — 42 exemplaren
Antaeus No. 75/76, Autumn 1994 - The Final Issue (1994) — Medewerker — 32 exemplaren
One World of Literature (1992) — Medewerker — 24 exemplaren
Studies in Fiction (1965) — Medewerker — 22 exemplaren
Passages: 24 Modern Indian Stories (Signet Classics) (2009) — Medewerker — 10 exemplaren
Guide [1965 film] (1965) — Original novel — 4 exemplaren
Modern Fiction About Schoolteaching: An Anthology (1995) — Medewerker — 4 exemplaren
Immortal Stories (2013) — Medewerker — 3 exemplaren
Antaeus No. 70, Spring 1993 - Special Fiction Issue (1993) — Medewerker — 1 exemplaar

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With a writing career that spanned two thirds of the 20th century, R K Narayan used to be one of the best-known Indian writers internationally (there were several shelves of his books in our public library when I was growing up), but he’s rather faded off the map recently. As someone who grew up heavily influenced by writers like Thomas Hardy, Arnold Bennett and P G Wodehouse, was promoted by Graham Greene, and who produced dozens of well-made middle-class novels, most of them set in the imaginary South Indian small town of Malgudi, he doesn’t really fit the profile we look for in postcolonial writers, but he was extraordinarily good at what he did, and there seems to be a lot of value in his Balzacian project of chronicling the way Indian small town society fits together.

ThIs recent reprint, with an introduction from that great modern comic storyteller Alexander McCall Smith, brings together three short novels from Narayan’s middle period, all written shortly after Independence.
In Mr Sampath: the printer of Malgudi a young man comes to Malgudi to set up a new, socially-critical weekly magazine. The only printer he can find willing to take on the legal risks is the eccentric Sampath, whose ancient printing plant clearly isn’t quite up to the job, but who somehow gets the magazine going anyway. All goes well until Sampath is distracted by an opportunity to get into the movie business, and chaos ensues as the young editor finds himself scripting a Hindu epic instead of writing columns attacking slum landlords and town officials.
The financial expert, Margayya, is a middleman who when we first meet him is making a good living sitting under a banyan tree outside the Co-operative Land Bank helping farmers to fill in their loan applications. A humiliation makes him determined to rise in the world and make a career for his son, and a few years later he has made it to a city office and is running a wildly successful pyramid scheme, but of course the son isn’t interested in following in his father’s footsteps, and the pyramid collapses…
Waiting for the Mahatma is more directly historical — a young man with no real political convictions is drawn into the Independence campaign after being asked for donations by a pretty girl who turns out to be in Mahatma Gandhi’s entourage. The only way to get close to the girl is to join the movement himself. Narayan cleverly manages to convey both the enormous excitement of the Mahatma’s personal charisma and the difficulty normal humans face in trying to put his radical ideas into practice in their lives.
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thorold | 2 andere besprekingen | Mar 25, 2024 |
Small town money lender. Classic Narayan.
 
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ben_r47 | 5 andere besprekingen | Feb 22, 2024 |
This was an interesting charity shop find which piqued my interest since I have very patchy knowledge of Indian culture and the Hindu religion which are encompassed in this sprawling poem.

Maha (a prefix indicating greatness) Jaya/Bharata (Great victory) is primarily an epic tale of the conflict between factions of a royal family (The (Good) Pandavas and the (Bad) Kauravas) who are at war with each other on a supernatural, mystical and godly scale. Intertwined with this basic plot are philosophical, spiritual and historical musings on life, love, family, respect, duty, vengeance and forgiveness (amongst many others) all conveniently abridged in a palatable retelling of the huge Sanskrit scripture.

Since it is a retelling and heavily summarised, it would be unjust to judge this as a proper novel. Instead, I see it almost as non-fiction and a gateway to a layman's understanding to the roots of Indian culture. With this in mind, it isn't a really knock your socks off read but it is a really interesting and educational adaptation and definitely worth a read: 3/5
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Dzaowan | 3 andere besprekingen | Feb 15, 2024 |
A belated contribution to #NovNov (Novellas in November), The Painter of Signs is R K Narayan's eleventh of fifteen novels by this prolific Indian author. Like his early novels (including Swami and Friends (1935), which I reviewed here), it is set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi, at an indeterminate time but recognisably in an era when women's roles were starting to change.

Thirty-something Raman is a painter of signs for businesses in his local area, and he takes great pride in his work. He lives beside the river where occasionally a gust of wind will blow a bit of sand onto a board which is not quite dry. In the early part of the book we see him forego payment if his sign has flaws because his integrity matters more to him than money.

Raman lives with his elderly aunt, who has looked after his needs for his entire life. She is a quiet presence in the novel, spending her days sourcing and storing the best ingredients for the meals he likes best. Her sole amusement comes from visiting the temple at the end of the day and retelling her personal history. Raman takes her for granted and apart from occasional moments of guilt and resentment about her interest in his doings, does not appreciate that her life has been devoted to his. So it's not surprising that he thinks marriage is unnecessary.

Scornful about superstitions, religion and caste, Raman although conservative in his lifestyle, thinks well of himself and his modern attitude to rationality. He reads science and history books, which contribute to his sense of superiority. Although he works hard at his sign-painting, he does not recognise that he has the leisure to educate himself only because a woman is taking care of his needs.

Into this calm and settled life comes Daisy, a modern young woman whose very name signifies that she is an outsider of no caste or family. She hires Raman to make signs for her government-sponsored program to limit population growth through family planning, and her fervent attitude makes her fearless in tackling what is an intimate subject in her society, especially in remote villages. Raman is fascinated by her manner and appearance which signify her rejection of woman's traditional role. She is cagey about her past, but eventually Raman learns that she left home because she would not submit to being inspected for marriage and the inevitability of subservience to a man.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/12/08/the-painter-of-signs-1976-by-r-k-narayan/
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anzlitlovers | 9 andere besprekingen | Dec 7, 2023 |

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Statistieken

Werken
96
Ook door
19
Leden
9,122
Populariteit
#2,636
Waardering
3.8
Besprekingen
128
ISBNs
385
Talen
19
Favoriet
28

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