Book review
One of India’s finest novelists retells the two great Indian epics as well as some well-known tales from Hindu mythology and folklore. While the eleventh century Tamil poet Kamban’s version inspires his Ramayana, Narayan’s Mahabharata is based on Vyasa’s monumental work. In Gods, Demons and Others, he includes stories from Kalidasa’s Sanskrit classic Abhijnana Shakuntalam, the Tamil epic Silappadikaram, the Shiv Purana and the Devi Bhagwatam.
Paperback
Format: Demy | 632 pages | Published : 3/1/2000



About the author R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) was born in Madras and educated there and at Maharajah’s College, Mysore. His first novel was Swami and Friends (1935). In 1980 R.K. Narayan was awarded the A.C. Benson medal by the Royal Society of Literature and was made Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1989 he was made member of the Rajya Sabha. In 2000 the Padma Vibhushan was conferred on him. The novelist places himself firmly among the ordinary people, breaking down the boundaries between the real life outside his fiction and the life within the fiction. Narayan's small town and its characters have a universal appeal. 'The grand old man of Indo-Anglian writing, and one of the greatest English language writers of the last century... There are no last words on such maestros.' —The Tribune