Book review
This is R.K. Narayan’s classic chronicle of the adventures of a boy named Swami, and his friends Rajam and Mani, in a sleepy and picturesque South Indian town called Malgudi. Swami’s days are full of action—when he is not creating a ruckus in the classroom or preparing in his inimitable way for exams, he’s trying to acquire a hoop from the coachman’s son to run down the Malgudi streets, playing tricks on his grandmother, or stoning the school windows, inspired by a swadeshi demonstration. But the greatest feat of Swami and his friends lies in putting together a cricket team for the ‘MCC’ (the Malgudi Cricket Club) and challenging the neighbouring Young Men’s Union to a match. Just before the match, however, things go horribly, horribly wrong, and Swami has no option but to run away from home, wanting never to return to Malgudi again . . .


Malgudi Schooldays is a brilliantly evocative and delightfully funny account of the growing-up years from one of the greatest English language writers of our time.

Includes a slightly abridged version of the novel Swami and Friends along with two other Swami stories, available together for the first time
Features fifteen black-and-white illustrations by R.K. Laxman
Attractive design
The first in a series of Indian literature classics on the Puffin list

Paperback | 272 pages |
Published : 1/15/2002



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