In this review of R.K. Narayan's The Astrologer's Day, author Perry D. Westbrook points out that Narayan, an Indian journalist well before his work as a novelist, published his short stories in Indian newspapers. Westbrook is careful to point out that this is an important aspect of Narayan's short stories. These stories were written by a native Indian and read by a predominantly Native-Indian (English speaking) audience; Narayan was not writing to interpret India for Westerners.

The first of R. K. Narayan's three volumes of short stories, An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories (1947), contains thirty pieces, all of which had previously appeared in the Madras Hindu. Thus they had been written for, and presumably read and enjoyed by, the readership of one of India's greatest English-language newspapers. Though this readership would include most of the British, Anglo- Indians, and Americans living in South India, it would...