The Vendor of Sweets is one of R.K. Narayan's later novels, and was partially inspired by his travels to the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. The Narayan behind The Vendor of Sweets is a mature writer, at the height of his powers of diction and language; and yet, conscientious of the irony inherent in his very choice of language. There are immediate and interesting parallels between The Vendor of Sweets, in which a young man leaves to become a writer in America and returns to India a changed person, and Narayan's own career as one of the first noteworthy Indian writers to write exclusively in English.
For this reason, The Vendor of Sweets is a useful introduction to the broader...
