Waiting for Mahatma

"R.K. Narayan . . . has been compared to Gogol in England, where he has acquired a well-deserved reputation. The comparison is apt, for Narayan, an Indian, is a writer of Gogol's stature, with the same gift for creating a provincial atmosphere in a time of change. . . . One is convincingly involved in this alien world without ever being aware of the technical devices Narayan so brilliantly employs."—Anthony West, The New Yorker "The experience of reading one of his novels is . . . comparable to one's first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness—like one's own reflection seen in a green twilight."—Margaret Parton, New Herald Tribune Book Review "The hardest of all things for a novelist to communicate is the extraordinary ordinariness of most human happiness. . . . Jane Austen, Soseki, Chekhov: a few bring it off. Narayan is one of them."—Francis King, Spectator "The novels of R.K. Narayan are the best I have read in any language for a long time."—Amit Roy, Daily Telegraph