My Days

Since the death of Evelyn Waugh, Narayan is the novelist I most admire in the English language. His autobiography is worthy of his novels.

—Graham Greene

I am inclined to call this the last chapter, but how can an autobiography have a final chapter? At best, it can only be a penultimate one; nor can it be given a rounded-off conclusion, as is possible in a work of fiction.

So begins the last chapter of My Days, the only memoir from R. K. Narayan, hailed as India's most notable novelist and short-story writer by The New York Times Book Review.

In his usual winning, humorous style, R. K. Narayan shares his life story, beginning in his grandmother's garden in Madras with his ferocious pet peacock. As a young boy with no interest in school, he trains grasshoppers, scouts, and generally takes part in life's excitements. Against the advice of all, especially his commanding headmaster father, the dreaming Narayan takes to writing fiction, and one of his pieces is accepted by Punch magazine (his first prestige publication). Soon his life includes bumbling British diplomats, curious movie moguls, evasive Indian officials, eccentric journalists, and the blind urge to fall in love. R. K. Narayan's larger-than-life perception of the human comedy is at once acute and forgiving, and always true to it.