In the summer of 2001, R. K. Narayan was wheeled into a hospital. Till then, this ninety-four-year-old man was busy planning a new novel, his sixteenth. Unfortunately, the writer, who was on life support, did not recover and this story with a grandfather as the protagonist – perhaps a sequel to his last novel
Grandmother’s Tale(1992) – remained unwritten. To R.K. Narayan writing was as essential and as natural as breathing. Even when he travelled, he wrote about 1500 words per day and also maintained a diary; the jottings therein were used later in
My Dateless Diary(1960). Narayan began publishing at the age of twenty-nine and wrote 15 novels, 8 short story collections, 3 mythologies, about 8 non-fictional writings, and a play entitled
House of Thunder, which was never published
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Citation: Kar Barua, Sudeshna. "R. K. Narayan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 October 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3299, accessed 24 November 2024.]
