Rabindranath Tagore was born Calcutta, West Bengal on 1861 to Maharishi Debendranath Tagore, a well known Hindu reformer and Shrimati Sharada Devi. Tagore was home schooled. He was taught in Bengali, with English lessons in the afternoon. Rabindranath Tagore went to St Xavier's Jesuit school, but found the conventional system of education stifling. He began writing poetry by the age of eight.
His father wanted him to become a barrister and he was sent to England. In 1879, Tagore enrolled at University College, at London. However, his father forced him to return to India in 1880. Tagore's family chose his bride, an almost illiterate girl of ten named Bhabatarini (renamed Mrinalini), whom he married in 1883.
His earliest poetic collections Manasi (l890), Chitra (1895) and Sonar Tari (1895) used colloquial Bengali instead of the usual archaic literary form. In 1901 he founded the famous Shantiniketan near Calcutta. This was designed to provide a traditional ashram and Western education. He began with 5 pupils and 5 teachers (three of whom were Christian). His ideals were simplicity of living and the cultivation of beauty.
In 1912, Tagore visited Britain again and his own English translation of Gitanjali was published under Yeats' auspices. A lecture tour of Britain and the USA followed. In 1913, he was awarded the famous Nobel Prize and used the prize money to improve his school at Shantiniketan.
Tagore passed away in 1941.
Books by Rabindranath Tagore
The Tagore Omnibus: Volume 1 by Rabindranath Tagore This collector's edition of Rabindranath Tagore's novels in English translation brings together the writer's best-known novels in two omnibus volumes. The first volume features three novels-Chokher Bali, Ghare Baire and Yogayog and two novellas: Chaturanga and Malancha.
Chokher Bali (A Grain of Sand) is a classic exposition of an extramarital affair that takes place within the confines of a joint family. Asha, the simple, demure wife of the rich, flamboyant Mahendra, befriends Binodini, a vivacious young widow who comes to live with them; but both Mahendra and Binodini betray Asha's trust and elope, leaving the marriage in ruins.
Set against the backdrop of the Partition of Bengal by the British in 1905, Ghare Baire (Home and the World) is also the tale of a triangular relationship: between the liberal-minded zamindar Nikhilesh, his educated and sensitive wife Bimala, and Sandip, Nikhilesh's friend, a charismatic revolutionary who Bimala becomes attracted to.
Chaturanga (Quartet) traces the philosophical and emotional developments between Sachish, a brilliant young atheist who turns ascetic after the untimely death of his mentor, his friend Sribilash, and Damini, a young widow sheltered by the guru Lilananda, who Sachish and Sribilash become devotees of.
Set in the historical context of the decline of the landed aristocracy in Bengal and the emergence of the entrepreneur class, Yogayog (Nexus) is the tale of Kumudini, the daughter of a cultured family that has fallen on bad times, who is torn between her loyalties to Madhusudan, her crass and self-serving husband, and Bipradas, her artistic and compassionate brother, as she struggles desperately to find an identity for herself.
Finally, Malancha (The Garden) features the loving but childless couple Aditya and Neerja whose calm domestic world is shattered when Neerja is struck down by illness and suspects Sarala, Aditya's childhood friend, of usurping her place both in Aditya's heart and in their beloved garden.Read More...Hide Pages: 726 Accolades Nobel Prize Winning Author
Tagore Birthday Book: Selected from the English Works of Rabindranath by Rabindranath Tagore This book contains selected English writings of Rabindranath Tagore and was first published in 1928. It was edited by C.F. Andrews, who was a confidante of both Tagore and Gandhi. The book opens with a chapter initiating the reader into the life and writings of Gurudev Tagore. After a page of benediction, it breaks into a season-by-season, month-month and day-by-day recording of beautiful and profound expressions culled from various English works of Tagore. The four seasons, the twelve months of the Western calender and the 365 days of the year are noted in a singular fashion and given a unique poetic hue.Read More...Hide Pages: 225 Accolades Nobel Prize Winning Author
Selected Short Stories by Rabindranath Tagore This is a classic collection of stories by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore on Bengal, Hinduism, social issues, caste. with critical introduction by Wailliam Radice. Pages: 322 Accolades Nobel Prize Winning Author
Rabindranath Tagore Collected Stories by Rabindranath Tagore This collection contains some of the gems by Rabindranath Tagore, who undoubtedly put India on the literary map of the world. These stories hold the readers enthrall from the opening sentence itself, bringing the various characters to life in vivid detail.Read More...Hide Pages: 159
Hungry Stones And Other Stories by Rabindranath Tagore Tagore was the first modern Bengali short story writer. He wrote well over a hundred stories. He created stories from his own experience - love, social relationships, the correspondence between man and nature and the supernatural. This collection includes tales of mystery ('The Hungry Stones'), satirical fantasy ('The Kingdom of Cards') and lovable characters like 'The Cabulliwallah'.Read More...Hide Pages: 200
Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore Home and the World (Ghare Baire) is the story set against the backdrop of the partition of Bengal by the British in 1905. It is the story of a young liberal-minded zamindar Nikhilesh, his educated and sensitive wife Bimala and Nikhilesh's friend Sandip, a charismatic and nationalist leader whom Bimala finds herself attracted to. A perceptive explosion of difficulties, surrounding women's emancipation in pre-modern India, and a telling portrayal of the chasms inherent in the nationalist movement, Home and the World has generated endless debate and discussion.Read More...Hide Pages: 216 Accolades Nobel Prize Winning Author
Gora by Rabindranath Tagore Nobel Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore's most ambitious work Gora unfolds against the vast, dynamic backdrop of Bengal under British rule, a divided society struggling to envisage an emerging nation. It is an epic saga of India?s nationalist awakening, viewed through the eyes of one young man, an orthodox Hindu who defines himself against the British colonialist culture and finds himself approaching his nationalist identity through the prism of organized religion.
First published in 1907, Gora questions the dogmas and presuppositions inherent in nationalist thought like few books have dared to do. This new, lucid and vibrant translation brings the complete and unabridged text of the classic to a new generation of readers, underlining its contemporary relevance.Read More...Hide Pages: 517 Accolades Nobel Prize Winning Author
Gitanjali-Songs Offering by Rabindranath Tagore A Collection of Prose Translations made by the author from the original Bengali. Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for this book of prose. Tagore's poems are devotions, mystical, sublimated ecstasy. They are the thoughts of a seer, the perfect union of beauty and truth in poetry.Read More...Hide Pages: 120
Farewell Song by Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore reinvented the Bengali novel with Farewell Song, blurring the lines between prose and poetry and creating an effervescent blend of romance and satire. Through Amit and Labanya and a brilliantly etched social milieu, the novel addresses contemporary debates about - good - and - bad - writing, the nature of love and conjugality, and the influence of Western culture on Bengali society. Set against the idyllic backdrop of Shillong and the mannered world of elite Calcutta society, this sparkling novel expresses the complex vision and the mastery of style that characterized Tagore's later works.
January, 1958: America's best hope in the space race-the Explorer I satellite-sits on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. And when a man wakes that morning only to discover his memory erased and his life in danger, the only way he can reclaim his own identity-and find those responsible-is to remember the terrible secret that they forced him to forget. A secret that could destroy the Explorer I-and America's future.
The Best American Travel Writing 2000
The Best American Travel Writing 2000 by Bill Bryson
This inaugural edition of THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING journeys around the world to reveal our fascination with places both familiar and foreign. Guest editor Bill Bryson has gathered together remarkable pieces that travel across the remote stretches of Bhutan, along the busy roads of Cuba, and into the far-flung corners of Cambodia. Whether an account of an overnight stay in Central Park or the story of a hilarious ice golf tournament in Greenland, the selections in THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING 2000 exhibit the diversity and creative wonder of travel writing today.
Cat's Eye
Cat's Eye by Marget Atwood
Controversial painter Elaine Risley vividly reflects on her childhood and teenage years. Her strongest memories are of Cordelia, who was the leader of a trio of girls who were both very cruel and very kind to young Elaine, in ways that tint Elaine's perceptions of relationships and her world?not to mention her art?into the character's middle years. The novel unfolds in Canada of the mid-20th century, from World War II to the late 1980s, and includes a look at many of the cultural elements of that time period, including feminism and various modern art movements.
