Books by R. K. Narayan

"The Ramayana" is the greatest of Indian epics - and one of the world's supreme masterpieces of storytelling. Telling the story, this work suggests that it can be enjoyed for its psychological insight, its spiritual depth and its wisdom - or as a tale of abduction, battle and courtship played out in a universe with heroes, deities and demons.

Raju's first stop after his release from prison is the barber's shop. Then he decides to take refuge in an abandoned temple. Raju used to be India's most corrupt tourist guide, but now a peasant mistakes him for a holy man. Gradually he begins to play the part. He succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju's new holiness to the test.

A collection from India's foremost storyteller including characters from various walks of Indian life - merchants, beggars, herdsmen, rogues - all of whose lives are microcosms of the human experience.

The Mahabharata is some 3,500 years old and is the longest poem in any language. It is one of the founding epics of Indian culture and, with its mixture of cosmic drama and profound philosophy (one small section forms the BHAGHAVAD GITA) it holds aunique place in world literature. In this drastically shortened prose rendering, Narayan uses all his extraordinary talents to convey to a modern reader why this is such a great story. Filled with vivid characters, obsessed with the rise and fall of gods, empires and heroes, Narayan's MAHABHARATA is an enormously enjoyable experience and the perfect introduction to the otherwise bewildering Indian cosmology.

A widower of Gandhian principles, Jagan harbours affection for his son Mali. Yet even Jagan's patience begins to fray when Mali descends on the city of Malgudi full of modern notions. From different generations and different cultures, father and son are forced to confront each other, and are taken by surprise.

Love gets in the way of progress when Raman, a sign painter, meets Daisy, who wishes to bring birth control to the city of Malgudi.

Nataraj earns his living as a printer in the little world of Malgudi, an imaginary town in South India. He and his close friends, a poet and a journalist, find their congenial days disturbed when Vasu, a taxidermist, moves in with his stuffed hyenas and pythons, and brings his dancing-women up the printer's private stairs.