• ISBN13: 9788126901784
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: English Literature
• Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Ltd
• Publisher Imprint: Atlantic
• Publication Date: June 26, 2008
• Pages: 296
• Original Price: INR 595.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 300 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): General

R.K. Narayan’s career as a novelist and short story writer spans almost eight decades from Swami and Friends (1935) to Grandmother’s Tale (1992) until his death on 13 May 2001 at the ripe age of 95. His distinctive sense of humour, his trade mark irony, his bemused, ‘knowing,’ ‘overseeing’ perspective, his rootedness in religion and family values and his inescapable capturing of the essence of Indian sensibility—all have been looked at from a refreshingly new perspective, hitherto only partly touched or left unexplored and unattempted. New insights into The Guide, The Maneater of Malgudi, A Tiger for Malgudi, Waiting for the Mahatma, The Dark Room exploit freshly-forged tools of critical analysis—comparative, structural, ‘new historical’, feminist, Bakhtinian, post-colonial and socio-cultural and ethical. A welcome addition to the extant critical scholarship on R.K. Narayan’s Ouevre. A lucid discussion of new dimensions in Literary Theory through well-argued, illustrative analysis of popular texts. A scholarly elucidation of the Sociology of Hinduism as reflected in Popular Fiction. An indispensable source-book for students, researchers, teachers, scholars in inter-related fields like Literary Criticism, Theory of Literature, Indian Philosophy, Customs and Thought-Patterns, besides Social Anthropology and Sociology.

Dr. M.K. Bhatnagar is Professor, Department of English, M.D. University, Rohtak (Haryana), India. A distinguished scholar and a veteran teacher of more than two decades’ standing, he has been Chairman, Department of English, M.D. University, Rohtak and also Chairman, State Inter-University Common Syllabi Committee in English of Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra and M.D. University, Rohtak. Having been selected for the prestigious Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship, Professor Bhatnagar has been a U.G.C.-empanelled Resource Person and part of the Guest Faculty at a number of U.G.C-sponsored Refresher Courses for College Lecturers. He has also chaired individual sessions at national seminars. He has been a U.G.C. Fellow at Panjab University, Chandigarh and a U.G.C. Research Associate at University of Poona, Poona. At present, he is engaged in working as Principal Investigator in a Major U.G.C. Project on Indian English Fiction. Professor Bhatnagar’s publications include, besides a number of research articles in prestigious journals in India and abroad, Political Consciousness in Indian English Writing, Perspectives and The Fiction of Nayantara Sahgal. His areas of interest are : Literary Theory, Comparative Literature, Commonwealth and Indian English Literature and Third World Fiction.

• 1. The Fictional Universe of R.K. Narayan
• An Overview–M.K. Bhatnagar
• 2. The Novels of R.K. Narayan and Indian Reality–S.P. Swain
• 3. R.K. Narayan : A Novelist Committed to the Hindu Ideals and Beliefs–S.R. Ramteke
• 4. R.K. Narayan : A Return to Ritual and Folklore–Rama Kundu
• 5. Indian Customs and Conventions Depicted in the Writings of R.K. Narayan–S. Girija
• 6. Gods, Demons and Others in the Novels of R.K. Narayan–Patrick Swinden
• 7. The Guru-Shishya Relationship in R.K. Narayan’s The Guide–Stefano Mercanti
• 8. Tiger Must Be Tiger : An Evaluation of Brahminical Values in R.K. Narayan’s A Tiger for Malgudi–P. Rajendra Karmarkar
• 9. Gandhian Consciousness : A Study in the Novels of R.K. Narayan–Lalji Misra
• 10. The Dialogic Imagination in R.K. Narayan’s Waiting for the Mahatma : A Bakhtinian Analysis–Sravani Biswas
• 11. Epoch-making Patterns of Resistance Through the Refusal of Hybridity in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura and in R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi–Alessandro Monti
• 12. R.K. Narayan’s The Maneater of Malgudi : Problematising the Nation–Syed Mujeebuddin
• 13. Raja Rao’s Kanthapura and R.K. Narayan’s Waiting for the Mahatma : A Study in Comparison–Krishna Mohan Pandey
• 14. Femininity in the Fiction of R.K. Narayan : A Study–Pier Paolo Piciucco
• 15. Ibsenite Feminism in Narayan’s The Dark Room–Sudhir Dixit
• 16. Triumph of the Primitive : A Comparative Study of Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King and R.K. Narayan’s The Guide–Digambar Singh Dewari
• 17. Detachment and Objectivity in R.K. Narayan’s Works–Pushp Lata
• 18. Themes and Techniques in R.K. Narayan’s Short Stories–B. Vyaghreswarudu