Tab Article

Ratings: ★★★★★ (4.6/5)
Genre: Literary Fiction / South Asian Literature / Coming-of-Age Novel

Review:
The Bachelor of Arts is R.K. Narayan's early novel (1937) about Chandran, a young man in his final year of college. When a glimpse of a green sari on a riverbank ignites his imagination, love sends him into exile from Malgudi, his friends, family, and life itself. Love becomes the catalyst that turns him back to all that he had abandoned. Graham Greene wrote in his introduction: ''Narayan wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian.'' A subtle, rewarding coming-of-age story full of gentle, wry humour.