Ranga Rao
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199470754
- eISBN:
- 9780199087624
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199470754.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature, World Literature
Narayan’s early hardships as an Indian novelist in English were aggravated by his resolve to do something different from his predecessors in south India: B. Rajam Iyer (1872–1898), A. Madhaviah ...
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Narayan’s early hardships as an Indian novelist in English were aggravated by his resolve to do something different from his predecessors in south India: B. Rajam Iyer (1872–1898), A. Madhaviah (1872–1925), and K.S. Venkataramani (1891–1951). All three were bilingual, tended to be didactic, and employed large numbers of Indianisms. By the time Narayan began writing, nationalism had taken root in India under Gandhi’s leadership, but he did not carry on his back a patriotic burden. His admiration for the British authors he had read avidly led him to aspire for their public; London had a magic literary ring for this ambitious youth in distant Mysore. With English as the sole language of his literary life, however, Narayan succeeded in yoking the provincial to the cosmopolitan without hurting his roots in family, religion, and society: keeping at bay crippling dysculturation.Less
Narayan’s early hardships as an Indian novelist in English were aggravated by his resolve to do something different from his predecessors in south India: B. Rajam Iyer (1872–1898), A. Madhaviah (1872–1925), and K.S. Venkataramani (1891–1951). All three were bilingual, tended to be didactic, and employed large numbers of Indianisms. By the time Narayan began writing, nationalism had taken root in India under Gandhi’s leadership, but he did not carry on his back a patriotic burden. His admiration for the British authors he had read avidly led him to aspire for their public; London had a magic literary ring for this ambitious youth in distant Mysore. With English as the sole language of his literary life, however, Narayan succeeded in yoking the provincial to the cosmopolitan without hurting his roots in family, religion, and society: keeping at bay crippling dysculturation.
