My Days: A Memoir – R. K. Narayan

The charming, witty, and deeply moving autobiography of R. K. Narayan—one of India’s greatest storytellers—revealing the real-life inspirations behind the immortal world of Malgudi.

About the Book: In My Days, R. K. Narayan turns his sharp, observant eye upon his own life, delivering a memoir that reads with the same gentle irony, warmth, and narrative grace as his finest fiction.

Narayan takes readers on a captivating journey through his childhood in Madras, where he was raised by his formidable grandmother and kept company by a beloved pet peacock and a mischievous monkey. He vividly recalls his school days, his early rebellion against formal education, and his deep-seated passion for reading. The memoir beautifully transitions into his formative years in Mysore, capturing the struggles of an aspiring young writer receiving endless rejection slips while trying to carve out a literary career.

More than just a personal history, My Days provides an invaluable backstage pass to the creation of his masterpieces. Readers will discover how his walks through the streets of Mysore birthed the fictional town of Malgudi, and how his first novel, Swami and Friends, came to life. Narayan also opens up with profound honesty about his brief, beautiful marriage to his wife Rajam, the devastating grief of her early death, and how that profound loss shaped his deeply personal novel, The English Teacher. For anyone who has ever loved his books, this autobiography is an essential, heartwarming companion piece.