Thinking of Mulk reminds me of lines from Keat's The Fall of Hyperion,
‘None can usurp this height,' return'd that shade
‘But those to whom the miseries of the world
Are misery, and will not rest them rest.'

I don't want to romanticize Mulk, but the misery of the poor and the down-trodden in India became his misery. He knew, though, that the humiliation he felt was secondary – the humiliation of seeing other people suffer. He wanted it to be primary – to be a victim himself so that he could feel the pain first hand. That, however, was not possible. But in Untouchable and Coolie he came as close to being a victim as was possible imaginatively in fiction.

My contact with Mulk began in 1965. I had written two books on the Irish dramatist Sean O'Casey and was looking for an Indian author on whose work I could research. I wrote simultaneously to R.K. Narayan and Mulk Raj Anand if they would like me to do a book on them. The replies were swift. “No, thank you,” wrote R.K. Narayan. Mulk, on the other hand, not only agreed but promised me every possible help. Thus began a friendship that has played an important part in my life and in my thinking. Between 1965 and 2002 he wrote some 350 letters to me on a vast variety of subjects that interested him. But nothing interested him more than alleviating the suffering of the poor and promoting the arts (He looked on the arts as a means of bridging the gulf between the rich and the poor).

The Mulk Raj Anand Omnibus , which Penguin Books have so thoughtfully brought out, is a fitting tribute to a great man and a great writer. The three novels in this volume, Untouchable, Coolie and Private Life of an Indian Prince , show Anand at the height of his achievement. What makes them unforgettable is the genuine passion of the author and his unwavering love of the poor. No discerning reader can miss that – not even in Private Life of an Indian Prince which has a prince as its central character. Princes or paupers, all his heroes are victims: some of society's making, others of their own. And he has for them all what Arnold Bennett took to be the most essential gift in a novelist – “a Christ-like, all embracing compassion.”

There are novelists who share Mulk's greatness as a writer, but none – or few – his compassion and love for humanity. Let us, as individuals, keep alive the memory of this great humanitarian; let us, as members of a caring society, step forward boldly and embrace his ideals and the work he began to enrich our lives. Mulk was more than a man. He was an institution. The man has gone, but the institution remains. For how long? That depends on us all. We must not let him down.