R. K. Narayan, who died on May 13th aged 94, was widely regarded as India's greatest writer in English of the 20th century. He was a major world literary figure, and Malgudi, his fictional south Indian town, which he peopled with ordinary men and women, made the rhythms and intricacies of Indian life accessible to the world.
Between 1930 and his death, he wrote 15 novels and scores of short stories; nearly all his fiction was located in Malgudi. Three of the novels, The Financial Expert (1952), The Guide (1958), and The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961), are generally held to represent the pinnacle of his art.
RasipuramKrishnaswami Narayanaswami (the last, his given name, was shortened at the suggestion of Graham Greene and the publisher Hamish Hamilton) was born in Madras. The third of eight children, he was raised by his maternal grandmother as a middle-class Tamil Brahmin in an ancient quarter of the city while the rest of the family lived in Mysore.
From his grandmother he absorbed folk tales, a fluent narrative tradition and an appreciation of south Indian classical music. An impecunious uncle, idealistic and committed to both classical Tamil literature and Shakespeare, instilled in him enduring values.
He was educated at a Lutheran mission and two other Madras schools before his father summoned him to Mysore in 1922. He was, he recalled, a reluctant pupil, prone to day-dreaming in class and at sea with subjects like arithmetic. But he was captivated by the green spaces and eloquent landscape of Mysore, dominated by the rise of Chamundi Hill, and became part of a large, lively family. He twice failed his university entrance examination, but when he gained admission to Maharaja's College, Mysore, he found little of interest. Graduating in 1930, he tried teaching, but gave it up after four days. In September, 1930 on a day selected by his grandmother, he opened an exercise book and waited for inspiration. After writing his first line, "It was Monday morning," he saw in his mind's eye, a railway station; its name "seemed to hurl into view" - and Malgudi was born.
R. K. Narayan's fairy godfather was his friend Kittu Purna, who showed some of his short stories and his first novel, Swami and Friends, to Graham Greene, in Oxford, in the early 1930's. Thanks to Greene's intervention, in 1935 it found a publisher and was soon followed by The Bachelor of Arts (1937) and the Dark Room (1938).
Back in India, he now had a family to support. Departing from convention, he had found his own bride, Rajam, and married her in 1934; two years later, their daughter Hema was born. Rajam's death from typhoid in 1939 was the most shattering blow of his life. He sought to make spirit contract with her, believing she was alive on another planet.
In the 1950s, the writer's star rose steadily and he became prosperous. But he maintained a simple lifestyle in Mysore, his only indulgence being an imported blue Mercedes. He became an inveterate traveller, journeying regularly to London, New York and many other places.
His honours included the Indian Sahitya Akademi Award, the Royal Society of Literature's Arthur Christopher Benson Award and, in 1964, one of his country's highest civil honours, the Padma Bhushan.
R.K.Narayan (Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayana-swami): born 1906; died, May 2001