[Graham Greene was directly responsible for the publication of Narayan's first novel, Swami and Friends. Narayan had mailed the manuscript to a friend in England who had approached several publishers. When they all promptly rejected the book Narayan, bitterly discouraged, instructed his friend not to mail the manuscript back to India, but rather to tie a stone to it and throw it into the Thames. Instead, Narayan's friend brought the manuscript to Greene, who was so impressed with the novel that he secured a publisher for it. Greene subsequently became one of Narayan's most influential proponents.]

There are writers—Tolstoy and Henry James to name two—whom we hold in awe, writers—Turgenev and Chekhov—for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect—Conrad for example—but who hold us at a long arm's length with their "courtly foreign grace". Narayan (whom I don't...