This compendium, which reads like a traditional book, is drawn from a wide range of his reflections on world peace. "It is not that I am incapable of anger, but I succeed on almost all occasions to keep my feelings under control. Such a struggle leaves one stronger for it. The more I work at this, the more I feel delight in my life, the delight in the scheme of the universe. It gives me a peace and a meaning of the mysteries of nature that I have no power to describe." - Mahatma Gandhi.

    Regarded as one of the greatest Hindi novels ever written, this comprises of the journey of the characters through the tumultuous times of India - Pakistan partition of 1947.

    Mistaken for a holy man, he plays the part and succeeds so well that God himself intervenes to put Raju's newfound sanctity to the test. Narayan's most celebrated novel, The Guide won him the National Prize of the Indian Literary Academy, his country's highest literary honor.

    A touching yet accurate portrait of this Indian Boadicea, The Ranee of Jhansi as a biography also puts the events of the 'mutiny' and the actual role of Lakshmibai in it, into perspective. Manakarnika was born on the banks of the Ganges at Benares in 1828, a lively and precocious young girl who would grow up to be the queen of Jhansi and an Indian hero. The Ranee of Jhansi explores the plains and hills of central India in 1857, the circumstances that led to the great revolt and the vivid scenes of the battle of Jhansi. At the heart of it all, however, is the story of Rani Lakshmibai, who continues to be celebrated for her courage and valour a century-and-a-half after her death. Her intuitive grasp of warfare, astute judgement and indomitable will, made her fight in the face of defeat. A young widow by the age of thirty, she led an army against the British. She was hailed by them, after her death, as 'the most dangerous of all Indian leaders'.

    Narayan's reputation as one of the founding figures of Indian writing in English is re-examined in this comprehensive study of his fiction. Arguing against views that have seen Narayan as a chronicler of authentic "Indianness," John Thieme locates his fiction in terms of specific South Indian contexts, cultural geography, and non-Indian intertexts. Thieme draws on recent thinking about the ways places are constructed to demonstrate that Malgudi is always a fractured and transitional site--an interface between older conceptions and contemporary views that stress the inescapability of change in the face of modernity. Offering fresh insights into the influences that went into the making of Narayan's fiction, this is the most wide-ranging and authoritative guide to his novels to date.