The Ramayana is a mythological book by R. K. Narayan

R. K. Narayan

R. K. Narayan , shortened from Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami Tamil: ) , Madras Presidency, British India. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his studies at his father's school...

. It was first published by Chatto and Windus

Chatto and Windus

Chatto & Windus has been, since 1987, an imprint of Random House, publishers. It was originally an important publisher of books in London, founded in the Victorian era....

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1973. The book is a shortened, prose adaptation of the Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

 Kamba Ramayanam. In 1938, Narayan made a promise to his dying uncle that he would translate the Kamba Ramayana to English, however, he did not think about this promise until 1968 when he began work on this effort. He later wrote The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata (R. K. Narayan)

The Mahabharata is a mythological book by R. K. Narayan. It is a modernised, shortened and translated retelling of The Mahabharata. It was first published by Heinemann, London in 1978...

, published in 1978.