Imaging Malgudi: R K Narayan’s Fictive Town and its People
R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) is one of the most influential and respected Indian writers. This book is a critical study of Narayan’s novels of the common people, their aspirations and struggles, their pieties and rituals, their myths and superstitions. The fictional town of Malgudi in pre-industrial Southern India is the setting for these timeless stories. The book presents a holistic view of Malgudi and its people from multiple perspectives, such as social, cultural, religious, and economic. In Narayan’s novels, tradition and modernity, fiction and reality, and mythology and history seamlessly merge to craft the narrative. They explore the impact of caste, class, and religion on the individual and the community, as well as the interface between the traditional and the modern, and the past and the present, highlighting the inherent pulls and tensions in society. However, even as Malgudi clings to its conservative past, it opens its doors to urban, educated, and professional men and women from the outside. The book will interest students, teachers, and scholars of literature.
Dr Harsharan Singh Ahluwalia retired as Professor of English at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India, in December 1995. In a career spanning 24 years of teaching and research, he taught courses in American, British, and Indian Literature in English, and published academic papers in various Canadian, American, and Indian journals. He received his PhD on “Walt Whitman’s Concept of the Poet: A Study of the Poetic Persona in his major Poems” from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, in 1971. He won the Scholar-in-Residence award at the American Studies Research Centre, India, in May 1976 and June 1986. He was also selected by the American Council of Learned Societies for a Visiting Fellowship at Yale University from 1980-1981.
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