This book has attempted to explore the world of R. K. Narayan in a language which would appeal to the non-specialist reader. It should also be useful to the student and the scholar; the notes and other scholarly references are meant to serve that purpose. Briefly this book has tried to set Narayan in a context where insights derived from contemporary thought can be used to read him with a degree of sophistication. The palpably autobiographical dimension of his work has been highlighted, but Narayan is too good a writer to be merely confessional. Thus a symbiotic relation between fact and fiction, what has been termed the facticity of fiction and the fictionality of fact, helps us to read Narayan with a degree of complexity. His world of Malgudi suggests some ideas of the nation but Narayan works not only at the abstract level of India but also at the more concrete level of South India, indeed Tamil Brahmin India. Narayan's essays contain citizenly thought, and his travel narratives and memoirs constitute a mixed genre of writing — partly essay, partly fiction, partly autobiography and partly travel narrative. This movement between genres is a part of Narayan's elusive elegance. He cannot be easily labelled. His fictional career shows a steady movement from personal narrative to a more objective form of writing but in the main they are all about what Ranga Rao has called “Gunas”.