Rasipuran Krishnaswami Narayan embodies in his career and writing all the necessary ambiguities of an Indian novelist who came to maturity under the British Raj…. A master of Chekhovian irony, he also moves in a world where marriage horoscopes are crucial, neighborhood temples blossom with exotic theriomorphic deities, reincarnations are taken for granted, priests bless movie cameras, and a great-grandfather's caste can make or break your social pretensions. I used to find it paradoxical that Narayan was discovered by Graham Greene and puffed by Evelyn Waugh: no longer.
"Malgudi" is the name of a fictional South Indian city which bears more than a passing resemblance to Mysore, with touches of Bangalore, Madras, and Chennapatna. It has formed the setting for all Mr. Narayan's novels and stories: one critic describes it, a trifle portentously, as "a metaphor of India."… Malgudi belongs to that select group of fictitious localities—Macondo, Llareggub, Yoknapatawpha County—that for their devotees are more real than anywhere in this tangible, lackluster world. Albert Mission College, Lawley Extension, and Vinayah Mudali Street may have pale and quotidian originals, but it took Narayan's creative art to immortalize them.
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