Malgudi days

MALGUDI DAYS is among Narayan’s collection of short stories. The stories written with Narayan’s simple style and characteristic gentle irony portray the variety and colour of Indian Life. Narayan, in his introduction says: “I have named this volume MALGUDI DAYS in order to give it a plausibly geographical status. I am often asked. ‘Where is Malgudi?’ All I can say is that it is imaginary and not to be found on any map If I explain that Malgudi is a small town in South India I shall only be expressing a half-truth, for the characteristics of Malgudi seem to me universal.” Readers cannot agree more.

“The hardest of all things for a novelist to communicate is the extraordinary ordinariness of most human happiness… Jane Austen, Soseki, Chekhow: a few bring it off. Narayan is one of them”. – Francis King

“A treat… he is an enchanter” – Hillary Spurling in The Observer “Narayan’s fabled artistic innocence is at once studied and sincere”.