R.K. 纳拉扬

R.K. 纳拉扬（1906年10月10日 - 2001年5月13日） ，是一位印度作家和小说家。格雷厄姆·格林是他的导师兼朋友。R.K. 纳拉扬曾获颁莲花赐勋章和莲花装勋章。 纳拉扬以印度南部虚构的城市马尔古迪为背景创作了14部小说和8部短篇小说集。

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayanaswami (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001), better known as R. K. Narayan, was an Indian writer and novelist known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao. In 1980, he received the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1981 he was made an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Narayan is the author of more than 200 novels, as well as short stories and plays. His work portrays his characters' social context and everyday life, often in between traditional life and modernity. He has been compared to William Faulkner, who similarly set much of his work in a locale of his own invention and explored ordinary life with humor and compassion. Narayan's short stories have been compared to those of Guy de Maupassant for their compressed narratives.

In a career that spanned over 60 years, Narayan received many awards and honours, including the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan, India's second- and third-highest civilian awards, and in 1994 the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour of India's National Academy of Letters. He was also nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament.

Life and career

Early life

R. K. Narayan was born in a Tamil Brahmin family on 10 October 1906 in Madras (now Chennai, Tamil Nadu), British India. He had five brothers and two sisters. Narayan was the second-oldest brother; his younger brother Ramachandran became an editor at Gemini Studios, and his youngest brother, Laxman, a cartoonist. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his studies at his father's school. As his father's job entailed frequent transfers, Narayan spent a part of his childhood under the care of his maternal grandmother, Parvati. During this time, his best friends and playmates were a peacock and a mischievous monkey.

His grandmother gave him the nickname Kunjappa, a name that stuck in his family circles. She taught him arithmetic, mythology, classical Indian music and Sanskrit. According to Laxman, the family mostly conversed in English, and grammatical errors were frowned upon. While living with his grandmother, Narayan studied at several schools in Madras, including the Lutheran Mission School in Purasawalkam, C.R.C. High School, and the Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School. Narayan was an avid reader, and his early literary diet included Dickens, Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy. When he was 12 years old, Narayan participated in a pro-independence march, for which he was reprimanded by his uncle; the family was apolitical and considered all governments wicked.