The Vendor of Sweets is a 1967 novel written by Indian writer R. K. Narayan. The book is, essentially, a fictional biographical tale of an Indian man named Jagan who works as a vendor of sweets in the fictional city of Malgudi. The conflict between the two cultures, the East and the West, is one of the main themes of the novel and actually represents the generational conflict between Jagan, who was born and raised as an Eastern Indian, and his son, who was raised as a Westerner.

In a broader sense, the culture clash between the East and the West metaphorically represents the clash between tradition and modernity, and the fictional town of Malgudi metaphorically represents the multicultural Indian society.