Swami and Friends is the first of Narayan’s many novels set in the fictional town of Malgudi, all of which deepen and expand the themes and locations introduced in this novel. In particular, this work is often considered the first in a trilogy of Malgudi coming-of-age novels, the second and third of which are
The Bachelor of Arts and
The English Teacher. Although the second two books in the trilogy concern different characters and do not extend Swami’s story, they are nonetheless closely linked thematically.
Swami and Friends also shares characteristics with a wide range of novels about groups of friends attending boys’ schools and struggling for autonomy in the face of domineering authority figures. One notable example is Rudyard Kipling’s story collection
Stalky and Co., which Narayan’s friend and advocate Graham Greene saw as a parallel to Narayan’s early stories about Swami. Finally, Narayan was one of the earliest Indian novelists to write exclusively in English about everyday life in India, thus paving the way for generations of Indian writers to do the same. These later writers include Arundhati Roy, a contemporary Indian novelist who gained fame for her novel
The God of Small Things, which was based partly on Roy’s childhood in India and won the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 1997.