R. K. Narayan: Short Stories, Style and What to Learn
1906 to 2001
Quick answer: R. K. Narayan built Malgudi, a town so complete readers look for it on maps. A craft guide to An Astrologer's Day, A Horse and Two Goats and the comic plain style.
Quick facts
- Born: 10 October 1906, Madras
- Died: 13 May 2001, Chennai
- Wrote in: English
- Known for: Malgudi Days, An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories, The Guide
- Signature move: The small man's small scheme, told with affection and no forgiveness
- Start with: An Astrologer's Day
R. K. Narayan invented Malgudi in 1935 and spent sixty-five years populating it: Market Road, the Mempi hills, the Sarayu river, Lawley Extension, and a cast of astrologers, postmen, tailors, schoolteachers, petty officials and children who fail their exams. The short stories in Malgudi Days and An Astrologer's Day (1947) are the quickest way into that town, and the best of them, An Astrologer's Day, A Horse and Two Goats (1960), The Missing Mail, Engine Trouble, are comedies of the small scheme.
Narayan's English is simple, almost bare, and he was criticised for it in his lifetime. It is the source of everything he does. This page is about how a plain style can carry comedy, irony and real sorrow without ever changing gear.
What he actually does on the page
He gives a modest man a modest plan and lets it go slightly wrong. The astrologer in An Astrologer's Day has no gift beyond a knowledge of human nature and a good lamp; the client who challenges him turns out to be a man he once tried to kill in a village quarrel, and the astrologer's cleverness saves his skin and his secret in one move. In Engine Trouble a man wins a road engine at a fair and cannot get rid of it. In The Missing Mail a postman withholds a telegram so that a wedding can go ahead. The schemes are small and the consequences are exactly the size of the town.
He lets two people talk past each other and keeps both innocent. A Horse and Two Goats is Muni, a poor goatherd who knows only Tamil, and an American tourist who knows only English, negotiating over a clay horse statue that Muni does not know is for sale. Each thinks the other understands. The comedy is long and gentle and there is no victim. Narayan's narration stays close to the character's own logic, and his irony comes from what the character does not notice about himself. The Doctor's Word, in which a physician lies to a dying friend and the friend recovers, shows how the same plain voice can hold something close to fear.
The signature move
An Astrologer's Day is under 2,000 words and turns twice without a wasted line. Narayan opens with the astrologer's stall, the lamp, the cowrie shells, the patter, all described as a trade like any other. A stranger lights a cheroot in the dark and dares him to earn his fee. The astrologer names the man's past, the knife, the well he was thrown into, and sends him home with a warning never to travel south again. Only when the astrologer gets home and tells his wife do we learn that he was the attacker, and that he has spent years believing himself a murderer. The relief he feels is the story's real ending, and Narayan gives it one plain sentence about sleeping soundly. He never says the word guilt.
Stories to read first
Begin with these.
What to steal for your own stories
Drills, not rules.
What not to copy
The mildness as a limit. Narayan's gentleness is chosen, and in stories like Iswaran and The Doctor's Word the sorrow underneath is plain; but the weaker Malgudi pieces settle for charm, and a writer copying only the charm produces anecdotes. His English is also his own invention, shaped by Tamil rhythm and 1930s Mysore. A plain style is a discipline, not an absence, and it has to be built.
Life at a glance
- 1906: Born in Madras and raised largely by his grandmother; the family later moves to Mysore.
- 1935: Swami and Friends, the first Malgudi book, published in London with Graham Greene's help.
- 1943: Malgudi Days, his first story collection, issued from his own press, Indian Thought Publications.
- 1947: An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories.
- 1958: The Guide, which wins the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960.
- 1982: Expanded Malgudi Days published by Penguin, the edition most readers know.
- 1986: Malgudi Days television series; Narayan is nominated to the Rajya Sabha the same year.
- 2001: Dies in Chennai at ninety-four.
What writers can take from this
- Describe a trade before you describe the person practising it.
- Let the town's geography recur until the reader can walk it.
- Make the stakes the size of a month's rent.
- Trust a simple sentence to carry a complicated feeling.
- Read A Horse and Two Goats aloud with two voices to hear how the misunderstanding is timed.
Try it yourself
Write 1,000 to 1,300 words about a small tradesperson (a letter writer, a bicycle repairer, a fortune teller, a tea-stall owner) whose ordinary working day is interrupted by a customer from their past. The tradesperson must resolve the encounter using only the skills of their trade. End at home, with one plain sentence about how they sleep.
Questions
What is R. K. Narayan's best short story?
An Astrologer's Day, almost without argument. A Horse and Two Goats is the most anthologised abroad, and The Missing Mail is the one Indian schools most often teach.
Where should I start with R. K. Narayan?
Malgudi Days in the 1982 Penguin edition, which gathers the best of the early collections with later stories. Then Swami and Friends (1935) and The Guide (1958).
Why is R. K. Narayan important?
He created the first fully realised fictional town in Indian English writing and proved that a plain, unornamented English could carry Indian life with humour and dignity. Every Indian writer in English since has had to decide where they stand in relation to Malgudi.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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