Kirin Narayan (born November 1959) is an Indian-born American anthropologist, folklorist and writer.
[6] In 1989, Narayan published Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching.
[9] Reviewing the novel, Indian poet and editor Dom Moraes praised the work, saying:"This is a novel well received and achieved: it is also intelligent, excellently written, and revelatory of what it is like to be an American born in India.
[11] In 2002 a new edition of the first collection of Indian folk tales in English, Mary Frere's Old Deccan Days, was published with an introduction by Narayan.
James Wood, writing of his 'Books of the Year' in The New Yorker, described it as a "brief and brilliant book" that he read "with huge pleasure".