1938 The Dark Room is published by Macmillan and receives enthusiastic reviews. Rao: Kanthapura.

Greene: Brighton Rock.

Bowen: The Death of the Heart.

1939 Narayan's wife, Rajam, dies of typhoid. He elects to bring up his daughter himself. Endures a period of depression, during which time he attempts to contact his wife through spiritual mediums. Publishes Mysore, a travel book. Begins a regular Sunday column for The Hindu. Anand: The Village.

Joyce: Finnegans Wake.

Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath.

1940 Anand: Across the Black Waters.

Greene: The Power and the Glory.

Hemingway: For Whom the Bell Tolls.

1941 Begins publishing his own quarterly journal, Indian Thought. Abandons it after three issues due to disappointing sales.

1942 Anand: The Sword and the Sickle.

Camus: The Stranger.

Eliot: Four Quartets.

HISTORICAL EVENTS.

Government of India Act creates a central legislature; provincial government handed over to elected Indian representatives. Burma separated from India. In Germany Nuremberg laws deprive Jews of citizenship and rights.

Outbreak of Spanish Civil War (to 1939) Hitler and Mussolini form Rome Berlin Axis. Stalin's 'Great Purge' of the Communist Party (to 1938).

Japanese invasion of China.

Germany annexes Austria; Munich crisis.

Hitler invades Poland; outbreak of World War II. Gandhi calls on the world to disarm. The Indian subcontinent contributes the largest volunteer army in history (some 2.5 million servicemen and women) to the Allied cause.

Italy enters war as German ally. Fall of France. Battle of Britain. Muslim League adopt the Pakistan Resolution, which demands an independent state for Muslims.

Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; US enters war. Japanese invasion of Burma begins. Hitler invades USSR. India's population is 389 million.

Sir Stafford Cripps visits India with British government's offer of complete self-government after the war: described by Gandhi as 'a post-dated cheque on a failing bank', it is rejected by Hindus and Muslims alike. Gandhi calls on British to 'Quit India' but the movement to eject the British is quickly suppressed. Japanese troops capture Rangoon and consolidate their position in Burma.

DATE AUTHOR'S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT 1943 Malgudi Days published by Indian Thought Publications, which also publishes Dodu and Other Stories the same year.

1944.

1945 The English Teacher published by Eyre & Spottiswoode, where Greene is a director. Cyclone and Other Stories published by Indian Thought Publications, Mysore, and Rock House & Sons, Madras. Borges: Fictions.

Orwell: Animal Farm.

Waugh: Brideshead Revisited.

1946.

1947 An Astrologer's Day and Other Stories. Rao: The Cow of the Barricades.

Maugham: Creatures of Circumstance.

C. P. Snow: The Light and the Dark.

1948 Begins building his own house on a plot of land outside Mysore. Desani: All About H. Hatterr.

Greene: The Heart of the Matter.

1949 Mr Sampath. Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Bowen: The Heat of the Day.

1950 Powell: A Question of Upbringing

(vol. 1 of A Dance to the Music of Time).

1951 Ruskin Bond: The Room on the Roof.

Chaudhuri: Autobiography of an Unknown Indian.

Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye.

1952 The Financial Expert published in the UK by Methuen. The following year it becomes the first of Narayan's works to be published in the US (by Michigan State College Press). Beckett: Waiting for Godot.