Very Best of R.K. Narayan

Over a career spanning seven decades, R.K. Narayan, easily one of the most influential and important writers of India, populated the fictional town of Malgudi with a host of unforgettable characters: Swami and his gang of friends, the Talkative Man, Raju the guide and Sampath the printer, among many others. These characters have carved out a place for themselves in popular imagination andive on, still fresh and endlessly entertaining, many decades after they first appeared.Timeless Malgudi brings together a selection of the best and the most enduring of R.K. Narayan''s fiction and nonfiction. The Guide examines, with wit and irony, how a man becomes a godman. The story ''A Horse and Two Goats'' describes an attempt at crosscultural communication which goes haywire, with hilarious consequences. The excerpt from My Days, Narayan''s autobiography, paints a poignant picture of the author''s childhood while the ''Misguided Guide'' is a cynical, sharply written chronicle of the making of the film Guide, based on his novel. Also included in this volume are excerpts from the travelogue My Dateless Diary and a brilliant retelling of the Tamil epic Silappadikaram.Catering both to Narayan aficionados and to readers who have not yet been introduced to his work, Timeless Malgudi is as much a showcase of Narayan''s writing as it is a celebration of Malgudi, the town which time does not touch.