Kirin Narayan (born November 1959) is an

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n-born American

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

, folklorist and writer.

Early life, education, and career

Narayan is the daughter of Narayan Ramji Contractor, a civil engineer from

Nashik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nashik ...

, and Didi Kinzinger, a German-American "artist, decorator, and builder of sustainable housing". Narayan was born in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, attended school in

and came to the United States in 1976. Narayan received a BA in creative writing from

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

and went on to post-graduate studies in anthropology at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, receiving her

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1987. She taught anthropology and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1993 she was named a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in the field of anthropology and cultural studies. She is a professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

Books

In 1989, Narayan published ''Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching''. It received the Victor Turner Prize from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and was co-winner of the Elsie Clews Prize for Folklore from the

American Folklore Society The American Folklore Society (AFS) is the US-based professional association for folklorists, with members from the US, Canada, and around the world, which aims to encourage research, aid in disseminating that research, promote the responsible ...

. In 1994, she published the novel ''Love, Stars and All That''. Reviewing the novel, Indian poet and editor

Dom Moraes Dominic Francis Moraes (19 July 1938 – 2 June 2004) was an Indian writer and poet who published nearly 30 books in English. He is widely seen as a foundational figure in Indian English literature. His poems are a meaningful and substantial c ...

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. It makes one feel Narayan is that very rare bird, a born writer, and that she may fly far.”

Narayan published ''Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon: Himalayan Foothill Folktales'' in 1997. 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. In 2007, she published a memoir ''My Family and Other Saints''. An autobiographical work in which "Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy", ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described the work as an "enchanting memoir". Its title is a reference to Gerald Durrell's ''

My Family and Other Animals ''My Family and Other Animals'' (1956) is an autobiographical book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It tells in an exaggerated and sometimes fictionalised way of the years that he lived as a child with his siblings and widowed mother on t ...

'', a childhood inspiration to Narayan. In her 2012 work ''Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov'', Narayan used

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860 Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904 Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career ...

's ''

Sakhalin Island Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: ...

'' as inspiration for an exploration of ethnographic writing. 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". In 2016 Narayan published ''Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills'', about women's traditions of singing in the

Kangra Valley Kangra Valley is a river valley situated in the Western Himalayas.Photo of Narayan as an infant with her mother
part of a 1960 photo-essay "East-West wife" by

Marilyn Silverstone Marilyn Rita Silverstone (9 March 1929 – 28 September 1999) was an English photojournalist and ordained Buddhist nun.Martin, Douglas"Marilyn Silverstone, 70, Dies; Photographer and Buddhist Nun" ''New York Times'', October 4, 1999. Youth The elde ...

in ''Coronet'' magazine {{DEFAULTSORT:Narayan, Kirin 1959 births Living people Writers from Mumbai Sarah Lawrence College alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty American women writers of Indian descent American women anthropologists American novelists of Indian descent American women novelists Women writers from Maharashtra Novelists from Wisconsin Indian emigrants to the United States Australian National University faculty American people of German descent Indian people of German descent American expatriate academics 20th-century American anthropologists 21st-century American anthropologists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century Indian women writers 21st-century Indian women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers 21st-century Indian non-fiction writers American women academics