R. K. Narayan, Western misunderstanding of a literary "decolonisation"

In the present article at attempt is made to understand the reasons of the enthusiastic but biased reception in the English-speaking are of R. K. Narayan (1907-2001), the Indian writer celebrated by G. Greene and H. Miller for his vivid depiction of India, whose fantastic dimension was little understood. In comparison with Anglo-Indian literature, R. K. Narayan may appear realistic at first sight. Yet, set free from the form and content of the European realistic novel, his deceptive art of telling can be analysed as a kind of literary decolonisation, inventing a new literary India, neither imaginary nor realistic alone, which can to some extent be seen as a literary expression of the underlying Indian concept of reality.