R. K. Narayanswami B.A.B.L. Engine Driver": Story-Telling and Memory in The Grandmother’s Tale, and Selected Stories

Authors

John C. Hawley, Santa Clara UniveristyFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2002

Publisher

South Asian Literary Association

Abstract

Much like the Nambi of this tale, R. K. Narayan has merited his reputation as a marvelous storyteller. Noted for his laser-beam focus on the closely-imagined Malgudi, he has come to be recognized as "the" Indian novelist, from whose pen many readers expected all the accumulated wisdom of the subcontinent's abiding concern for transcendence. While such "guru-ization" amused Narayan, it also elicited his quietly sustained argument against procrustean templates by which the west insisted on reading him as "typically Indian."²

Comments

Copyright © 2002 South Asian Review and South Asian Literary Association. Reprinted with permission.

Recommended Citation

Hawley, J. C. (2002). "R. K. Narayanswami B.A.B.L. Engine Driver": Story-Telling and Memory in The Grandmother’s Tale, and Selected Stories. South Asian Review 23(1), 86-105.