July 2011 Guest Editor Alexander McCall Smith on Swami and Friends...
Narayan was one of the very first Indian novelists writing in English to gain a substantial western following. His Malgudi novels provide a marvellous picture of the life of an Indian town and are full of humour and human yearning.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Recommendations: |
R. K. Narayan (1906-2001) witnessed nearly a century of change in his native India and captured it in fiction of uncommon warmth and vibrancy. Swami and Friends introduces us to Narayan's beloved fictional town of Malgudi, where ten-year-old Swaminathan's excitement about his country's initial stirrings for independence competes with his ardour for cricket and all other things British. The Bachelor of Arts is a poignant coming-of-age novel about a young man flush with first love, but whose freedom to pursue it is hindered by the fixed ideas of his traditional Hindu family. In The Dark Room, Narayan's portrait of aggrieved domesticity, the docile and obedient Savitri, like many Malgudi women, is torn between submitting to her husband's humiliations and trying to escape them. The title character in The English Teacher, Narayan's most autobiographical novel, searches for meaning when the death of his young wife deprives him of his greatest source of happiness.
Swami and Friends features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
Swami and Friends is available in Ebook, Paperback, Hardback
Swami and Friends was written by R K Narayan and published by Everyman
Swami and Friends has 609 pages
Yes it is part of Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics series
£15.29