Mr Sampath – The Printer of Malgudi (Phoenix Fiction S.) - Softcover

Narayan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226568393 ISBN 13: 9780226568393

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1981

Synopsis

"There are writers--Tolstoy and Henry James to name two--whom we hold in awe, writers--Turgenev and Chekhov--for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect--Conrad for example--but who hold us at a long arm's length with their 'courtly foreign grace.' Narayan (whom I don't hesitate to name in such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian."--Graham Greene Offering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre-partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief. "The experience of reading one of his novels is ...comparable to one's first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness--like one's own reflection seen in a green twilight."--Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune

About this title

Review

"R. K. Narayan's novels are like a box of Indian sweets: a highly-coloured container conceals a range of delectable treats, all different in a subtle way, but each one clearly from the same place. There are fourteen novels in the oeuvre-enough to create a world. Enthusiasts of his work will read them all and return to them time and again. The busy, or the less committed, may open the box and take out one at random-it does not really matter which order one reads them in. But be warned: the consumption of one leads to a strong craving for more" (Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series)

About the Author

R. K Narayan's writing spans the greatest period of change in modern Indian history, from the days of the Raj with Swami and Friends (1935), The Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The English Teacher (1945), to recent years of political unrest - The Painter of Signs (1976), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) and Talkative Man (1987). He has published numerous collections of short stories, including Malgudi Days (1982) and Under the Banyan Tree (1985), and several works of non-fiction. His most recent work is The Grandmother's Tale: Three Novellas (1993). R.K. Narayan died in 2001.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1981
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226568393
• ISBN 13: 9780226568393
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220