Featured Author: R. K. Narayan

Today's featured author is R. K. NARAYAN, one of India's best-known English-language authors. His short prose versions of the Ramayana and of the Mahabharata are both on the reading list for this class.

Narayan (Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami) was born in 1906 and died in 2001 at the age of 94 — and thus he witnessed most of the tumultuous 20th century in India. You can read about his life and career in this detailed Wikipedia article. He is best known as a novelist and a writer of short stories, turning to these epic projects only in the 1970s, very late in his career. Narayan's version of the Ramayana is remarkable because it is based, not on Valmiki, but instead on Kamban's Tamil version of the Ramayana, which is in turn based on Valmiki but which also has a personality all its own.

This brief video gives you an overview of his life:

Narayan was featured in a Google Doodle:

And a postage stamp was also issued in his honor:

Overview: Narayan. Ramayana (Kamban).

Title: The Ramayana: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
Author: Kamban / R. K. Narayan
Year: 1972

Comments: This is an excellent introduction to the Ramayana, based on the Tamil version by the medieval poet Kamban. R.K. Narayan was one of the most famous English-language authors of the 20th-century India; you can learn more about Narayan and also more about more about Kamban at the author pages of this site.

Length. The book is approximately 200 pages long, and very readable. I've divided the reading into four parts: Part A - Part B (one week of reading), Part C - Part D (another week of reading). There is a detailed reading guide for each part with notes, links, and images: Guide A - Guide B - Guide C - Guide D.

Bizzell Reserves. Go to the Bizzell Reserve Desk to check out a Kindle with this book; you can learn about the Bizzell Kindles here.

Bizzell Stacks. There is also a copy available for checkout from the regular Bizzell stacks: PR 9499.3 .N3 R36 2006 (click to see if it is checked out or not).

Kindle: You can buy your own Kindle copy from Amazon for $9.99 (checked price November 2017); more about Kindles.

Paper Copies: The book will be available for purchase/rent in the OU Bookstore. When I lasted checked, you could rent a copy for $7.04.

There are lots of editions of this book with different book covers; it doesn't matter which edition you buy so long as it is R. K. Narayan's English-language version of the Ramayana.

Overview: Narayan's Mahabharata

Title: The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic
Author: R. K. Narayan
Year: 1978

Comments: This is an excellent introduction to the Mahabharata, although of course it is very abbreviated. This R. K. Narayan is the same Narayan who wrote the Ramayana that you may have read earlier in the semester; R.K. Narayan was one of the most famous English-language authors of the 20th-century India; more about Narayan.

Length. The book is approximately 180 pages long, and very readable. I've divided the reading into four parts: Part A - Part B (one week of reading), Part C - Part D (another week of reading). There is a detailed reading guide for each part with notes, links, and images: Guide A - Guide B - Guide C - Guide D. Although the page numbers differ from edition to edition, you can use the flow of the plot to follow along with the Reading Guides.

Bizzell Reserve: Go to the Bizzell Reserve Desk to check out a Kindle with this book, and you can learn about the Bizzell Kindles here.

Bizzell Stacks: You can also check out a printed copy from the regular Bizzell stacks: PR 9499.3 .N3 M3 2013 (click to see if it is checked out or not).

Kindle: You can buy your own Kindle copy from Amazon for $9.99 (checked price November 2017); more about Kindles.

Paper Copies: The book will be available for purchase in the OU Bookstore.

There are lots of editions of this book with different book covers; it doesn't matter which edition you buy so long as it is R. K. Narayan's English-language version of the Mahabharata.