R. K. Narayan - Quiz
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  • 1. In which country was R. K. Narayan born?
A) India
B) Sri Lanka
C) Nepal
D) Pakistan
  • 2. What was the profession of R. K. Narayan?
A) Teacher
B) Doctor
C) Engineer
D) Author
  • 3. Which city is associated with the fictional town of Malgudi in Narayan's works?
A) Kolkata
B) Jaipur
C) Chennai
D) Mysore
  • 4. What year was R. K. Narayan born?
A) 1906
B) 1945
C) 1965
D) 1920
  • 5. Which novel by R. K. Narayan tells the story of a man named Raju who becomes a spiritual guide?
A) The Dark Room
B) The Bachelor of Arts
C) The Guide
D) Waiting for the Mahatma
  • 6. What was the first novel written by R. K. Narayan?
A) Swami and Friends
B) The Bachelor of Arts
C) The Guide
D) The Dark Room
  • 7. Which of the following is a recurring character in R. K. Narayan's works?
A) Krishna
B) Rama
C) Gandhi
D) Swami
  • 8. What was the title of R. K. Narayan's autobiography?
A) Malgudi Days
B) Swami and Friends
C) The Guide
D) My Days
  • 9. Which of the following is a social issue often addressed in R. K. Narayan's works?
A) Global warming
B) Cyberbullying
C) Space exploration
D) Caste system
  • 10. Which of the following is a short story collection by R. K. Narayan?
A) The God of Small Things
B) Malgudi Days
C) The Immortals
D) A Suitable Boy
  • 11. What was the name of the publishing company established by R. K. Narayan's niece and grandniece to bring his works to print?
A) Indian Thought Publications
B) Oxford University Press India
C) Penguin Books India
D) HarperCollins India
  • 12. Which medal did R. K. Narayan receive from the Royal Society of Literature in 1980?
A) Man Booker International Prize
B) Nobel Prize
C) AC Benson Medal
D) Booker Prize
  • 13. Which of R. K. Narayan's brothers became a cartoonist?
A) Kumar
B) Ravi
C) Ramachandran
D) Laxman
  • 14. In what year did R. K. Narayan pass his university entrance examination?
A) 1926
B) 1928
C) 1924
D) 1930
  • 15. Who recommended R. K. Narayan's first novel to a publisher?
A) Mulk Raj Anand
B) Graham Greene
C) Jawaharlal Nehru
D) Raja Rao
  • 16. What was the name of the newspaper R. K. Narayan worked for as a reporter?
A) The Hindu
B) The Indian Express
C) The Justice
D) The Times of India
  • 17. What was the cause of Rajam's death?
A) Cholera
B) Malaria
C) Typhoid
D) Tuberculosis
  • 18. Which of R. K. Narayan's novels is considered semi-autobiographical?
A) Waiting for the Mahatma
B) The Financial Expert
C) The English Teacher
D) The Guide
  • 19. Which of R. K. Narayan's novels was inspired by his experiences at college?
A) The Bachelor of Arts
B) The Guide
C) The Dark Room
D) Swami and Friends
  • 20. Which award is India's second highest civilian award that R. K. Narayan received?
A) Padma Shri
B) Bharat Ratna
C) Padma Vibhushan
D) Padma Bhushan
  • 21. In which year did R. K. Narayan start building his own house on the outskirts of Mysore?
A) 1950
B) 1948
C) 1945
D) 1953
  • 22. What was the name of the film for which R. K. Narayan wrote a story that was produced?
A) The Vendor of Sweets
B) Miss Malini
C) Malgudi Days
D) The Guide
  • 23. Which of R. K. Narayan's novels deals with domestic disharmony?
A) The Financial Expert
B) The Dark Room
C) Waiting for the Mahatma
D) The Guide
  • 24. What was R. K. Narayan's nickname given by his grandmother?
A) Kunjappa
B) Krishnaswami
C) Narayanaswami
D) Rasipuram
  • 25. What was the primary theme of R. K. Narayan's first three novels?
A) Fantasy and magic
B) Romantic love
C) Problems with socially accepted practices
D) Science fiction
  • 26. What was R. K. Narayan's first job after college?
A) Film writer
B) Journalist
C) Publisher
D) School teacher
  • 27. Which auspicious day did R. K. Narayan choose to create the fictional town of Malgudi?
A) Diwali
B) Onam
C) Holi
D) Vijayadashami
  • 28. Which of the following is NOT a category of R. K. Narayan's works?
A) Mythology
B) Short story collections
C) Novels
D) Non-fiction
  • 29. Which town is compared to Malgudi by Graham Greene?
A) Manchester
B) Oxford
C) Cambridge
D) Battersea
  • 30. In which year did R. K. Narayan receive the Sahitya Akademi Award?
A) 1960
B) 1980
C) 1986
D) 1964
  • 31. Where did Narayan move after his daughter's death?
A) Chennai
B) Madras
C) Mysore
D) Karnataka
  • 32. Which Pulitzer Prize winner classified R. K. Narayan as a short-story genius?
A) Alice Walker
B) Toni Morrison
C) Jhumpa Lahiri
D) Kazuo Ishiguro
  • 33. In which year was R. K. Narayan's former home converted into a museum?
A) 2014
B) 2000
C) 2016
D) 1989
  • 34. What was Narayan's interest in his later years?
A) Politics
B) Agriculture
C) Journalism
D) Travel writing
  • 35. What was the title of Narayan's final book?
A) The Emerald Route
B) Grandmother's Tale
C) Malgudi Days
D) A Writer's Nightmare
  • 36. Which year did Google commemorate R. K. Narayan's 108th birthday with a doodle?
A) 1986
B) 2014
C) 2016
D) 2019
  • 37. What was the age of Narayan at the time of his death?
A) 100
B) 85
C) 75
D) 94
  • 38. Which author compared R. K. Narayan to Charles Dickens?
A) Somerset Maugham
B) Graham Greene
C) E. M. Forster
D) John Updike
  • 39. In which year was R. K. Narayan elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters?
A) 1982
B) 1967
C) 1973
D) 1976
  • 40. Which author criticized Narayan for not dealing with the political structures of his time?
A) K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar
B) Mulk Raj Anand
C) R. K. Laxman
D) Ruskin Bond
  • 41. Which book by Narayan is a condensed translation of the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata?
A) The Guide
B) The Mahabharata
C) The Man-Eater of Malgudi
D) The Ramayana
  • 42. Who took care of Narayan after his daughter's death?
A) His granddaughter Bhuvaneswari (Minnie)
B) His son
C) His wife
D) N. Ram
  • 43. Which novel by R. K. Narayan is considered his masterpiece and was published in 1951?
A) The Man-Eater of Malgudi
B) Waiting for the Mahatma
C) The Guide
D) The Financial Expert
  • 44. Which author compared Narayan's narrative style to that of Walt Whitman?
A) Ezra Pound
B) Robert Frost
C) Edmund Wilson
D) T. S. Eliot
  • 45. What is the title of Narayan's collection of conversational essays published in 1960?
A) The Man-Eater of Malgudi
B) Next Sunday
C) My Dateless Diary
D) The Guide
  • 46. What was the theme of R. K. Narayan's novel 'The Bachelor of Arts'?
A) Fantasy and magic
B) Rebellious adolescent transitioning to a well-adjusted adult
C) Problems with socially accepted practices
D) Domestic disharmony
  • 47. Which literary figure did critics consider Narayan to be the Indian equivalent of?
A) Fyodor Dostoevsky
B) Leo Tolstoy
C) Anton Chekhov
D) Mikhail Bulgakov
  • 48. What was the name of R. K. Narayan's first published work?
A) Swami and Friends
B) The Dark Room
C) The Bachelor of Arts
D) A book review of Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England
  • 49. What did Narayan ask N. Ram to get for him before his death?
A) A book
B) A pen
C) A notebook
D) A camera
  • 50. What did Narayan plan to write before his death?
A) A collection of essays
B) A novel about a tiger
C) A story about a grandfather
D) A memoir of his travels
  • 51. Which Indian author criticized Narayan for having a pedestrian style?
A) Chetan Bhagat
B) Arundhati Roy
C) Ruskin Bond
D) Shashi Tharoor
  • 52. Which author described Narayan's writings as 'compassionate realism'?
A) Salman Rushdie
B) Anita Desai
C) Arundhati Roy
D) Jhumpa Lahiri
  • 53. Who chaired the committee recommended by Narayan's inaugural speech?
A) R. K. Narayan
B) N. Ram
C) Prof. Yash Pal
D) The Prime Minister
  • 54. Which author noted that Narayan wrote from deep within his community?
A) Jhumpa Lahiri
B) Arundhati Roy
C) Salman Rushdie
D) V. S. Naipaul
  • 55. Which novel by Narayan is loosely based on a fictional visit to Malgudi by Mahatma Gandhi?
A) Waiting for the Mahatma
B) The Guide
C) The Man-Eater of Malgudi
D) The Financial Expert
  • 56. Which scholar created a map of Malgudi based on Narayan's fictional descriptors?
A) Dr. James M. Fennelly
B) Dr. N. Ram
C) Dr. V. S. Naipaul
D) Dr. Susan Ram
  • 57. Which fellowship did Narayan receive while visiting the United States in 1956?
A) Ford Foundation Fellowship
B) MacArthur Fellowship
C) Rockefeller Fellowship
D) Guggenheim Fellowship
  • 58. What book did R. K. Narayan write to promote tourism in Karnataka?
A) Under the Banyan Tree
B) The Tiger's Tale
C) The Emerald Route
D) Malgudi Days
  • 59. Which American author's works are compared to Narayan's in terms of humor and energy of ordinary life?
A) Ernest Hemingway
B) F. Scott Fitzgerald
C) John Steinbeck
D) William Faulkner
  • 60. Which author did critics label Narayan as the 'South Indian' equivalent of?
A) George Orwell
B) Virginia Woolf
C) E. M. Forster
D) D. H. Lawrence
  • 61. Where did Narayan die?
A) Karnataka
B) Madras
C) Chennai
D) Mysore
  • 62. In what year was R. K. Narayan nominated to the upper house of the Indian Parliament?
A) 1973
B) 1989
C) 1960
D) 2000
  • 63. Which publishing house first published Narayan's works in the United States in 1953?
A) Michigan State University Press
B) Penguin Books
C) Viking Press
D) HarperCollins
  • 64. In which year was R. K. Narayan awarded the Padma Bhushan?
A) 1964
B) 2000
C) 1986
D) 1980
  • 65. R. K. Narayan's writing style is often compared to which Russian author?
A) Leo Tolstoy
B) Ivan Turgenev
C) Nikolai Gogol
D) Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • 66. What did Narayan do with the book he wrote for the government of Karnataka?
A) He included it in Malgudi Days
B) He abandoned the project
C) He translated it into Chinese
D) He republished it as The Emerald Route
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