R.K. Narayan was a renowned fiction writer born in South India. Along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao, he was an honoured novelist during the early Indian literature in English. He was awarded Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960. Padma Bhushan in 1964 and Padma Vibhushan in 2000. He is regarded as a regional novelist who wrote about Malgudi an imaginative region. He is compared to William Faulkner in his creation of an imaginary region. Regionalism in literature is the writing that focuses on the characters, dialect, customs, culture, topography and other features particular to a specific region. Magudi forms the fictional setting in his novels. It is a typically South Indian town symbolizing Indian culture and society. It occurs and reoccurs in his novels and short stories. In this paper selected novels of R.K. Narayan have been analyzed in the perspective of regionalism in literature to reassess his greatness as a regional novelist.

Keywords: Novel, Regionalism, Society, Culture, Realism, Symbol, Locale.