Rushdie: The Satanic Verses.

1989 Made a member of the Rajya Sabha (the non-elective House of Parliament in India). His inaugural speech is on the plight of Indian children. Visiting professor for the fall semester at the University of Texas at Austin. A Story-Teller's World (essays).

1990 The World of Nagaraj. Naipaul: India: A Million Mutinies Now.

Rushdie: Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

P. Fitzgerald: The Gate of Angels.

Trevor: Two Lives.

1991 Mistry: Such a Long Journey.

Kanga: Heaven on Walls.

Okri: Songs of Enchantment.

1992 Malgudi Landscapes: The Best of R. K. Narayan. Leaves his home in Yadavagiri, Mysore, and settles down in Madras, closer to his grandchildren. Das: Padmavati the Harlot and Other Stories.

Ghosh: In an Antique Land.

Ondaatje: The English Patient.

1993 The Grandmother's Tale (three novellas: 'The Grandmother's Tale', 'Guru' and 'Salt and Sawdust') published by Heinemann in the UK. Salt and Sawdust: Stories and Tabletalk published by Penguin in India. Seth: A Suitable Boy.

1994 The Grandmother's Tale and Selected Stories published by Viking in the US. Narayan's daughter, Hema, dies of cancer. Narayan is looked after by Hema's husband Chandru for the remainder of his life. Gunesekera: Reef.

HISTORICAL EVENTS.

Benazir Bhutto returns to Pakistan. Gorbachev Reagan summit. Nuclear explosion at Chernobyl.

Seventy-two people killed by Sikh extremists.

Benazir Bhutto Prime Minister of Pakistan. George Bush elected US President. Gorbachev announces big troop reductions suggesting end of Cold War.

Pakistan rejoins the Commonwealth. V. P. Rao becomes Prime Minister of India. De Klerk becomes South African President. USSR loses control of Eastern Europe; fall of Berlin Wall.

V. P. Singh forms coalition government.

First Gulf War. Yeltsin President of Russia. USSR disbanded. Rajiv Gandhi assassinated during Indian election campaign by Tamil suicide bomber; Narashima Rao becomes Prime Minister in tenth general election. Destruction of the Mosque of Babur at Ayodhya by Hindus leads to Hindu Muslim rioting in several Indian cities. Bill Clinton elected US President. Civil war in former Yugoslavia.

Israel hands over West Bank and Jericho to the Palestinians.

Mandela and ANC sweept to victory in South African elections. Rwandan massacres. Russian military action against the Chechen republic.

DATE AUTHOR'S LIFE LITERARY CONTEXT 1995 Desai: Journey to Ithaca.

Kesavan: Looking Through Glass.

Rushdie: The Moor's Last Sigh.

1996 Tales from Malgudi. Mistry: A Fine Balance.

1997.

1998 Arundhati Roy becomes first

Indian-based writer to win

Booker Prize for her novel

The God of Small Things.

Rao: Great Indian Way: A Life of Mahatma Gandhi.

1999 Seth: An Equal Music.

Desai: Feasting, Fasting.

2000 Desai: Diamond Dust.

2001 Narayan dies aged 94 in a private hospital in Chennai (formerly Madras) on 13 May.

HISTORICAL EVENTS.

Bharatha Janata Party (BJP) government collapses after a matter of days. Bombay becomes Mumbai, Madras becomes Chennai. Fiftieth anniversary of Indian Independence. Death of Mother Teresa. India declares itself a nuclear weapons state. BJP form coalition government. Amartya Sen wins the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Pakistani troops cross India-Kashmir border leading to fierce fighting in Kargil Drass region. Thirteenth general election; BJP government. India's population reaches i billion. Sonia Gandhi becomes President of Congress Party. Vishvanath Anand wins World Chess Championship. Twin towers of World Trade Center in New York collapse after terrorist attack. Earthquake in northern Gujarat leaves 20,000 dead and an estimated 100,000 trapped in the debris. Terrorist attack on Indian parliament.

ABOUT THE INTRODUCER.

__.

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH is a professor of medical law at Edinburgh University. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He is the author of over fifty books on a wide range of subjects, including the internationally bestselling novels of the No. I Ladies Detective Agency series and the Sunday Philosophy Club series. He lives in Scotland.