Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (1906 – 2001) was
an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of
Malgudi. The fictional town of Malgudi was first introduced in Swami and
Friends. Narayan's The Financial Expert was hailed as one of the most original
works of 1951 and Sahitya Academy Award winner The Guide was adapted for film
(winning a Filmfare Award for Best Film) and for Broadway.
Narayan highlights the social context and everyday life of
his characters. He has been compared to William Faulkner who also created a
similar fictional town and likewise explored with humour and compassion the
energy of ordinary life. Narayan's short stories have been compared with those
of Guy de Maupassant because of his ability to compress a narrative.
Mr. Narayan explored the value of village traditions and the
lives of ordinary people. In the 1930's, he created a town in South India that
he called Malgudi and populated it with characters who could be fussy, tricky,
harmlessly rebellious or philosophical -- but who were always believable. Mr.
Narayan would return again and again to Malgudi in many of his 34 novels and
hundreds of short stories.
Although Mr. Narayan's writing may strike many foreign
critics as dated today, his books accurately portray an India that hovers
between the unchangingly rural and the newly industrial and that is still
filled with individualistic, often eccentric personalities that recall his
imagined universe.
The death of his wife plunged him into a period of
depression during which he became obsessed with trying to communicate with her
through spiritual mediums. The painful search for ''true identity'' is a major
theme of Mr. Narayan's work. In ''The Vendor of Sweets'' the merchant
eventually rejects the world for a life of contemplation.
In a career that spanned over sixty years Narayan received
many awards and honours including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of
Literature, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, India's second and third
highest civilian awards. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper
house of India's parliament.
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