Letters from a Young Poet

PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1861–1941) was a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. He started writing at an early age and by the turn of the century had become a household name in Bengal as a poet, a songwriter, a playwright, an essayist, a short-story writer and a novelist. In 1913 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and his verse collection
Gitanjali
came to be known internationally. At about the same time he founded Visva-Bharati, a university located in Santiniketan, near Kolkata. Called the ‘Great Sentinel' of modern India by Mahatma Gandhi, Tagore steered clear of active politics but is famous for returning his knighthood as a gesture of protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919.

Tagore was a pioneering literary figure, renowned for his ceaseless innovations in poetry, prose, drama, music and painting—which he took up late in life. His works include some sixty collections of verse, nearly a hundred short stories, several novels, plays, dance dramas, essays on religious, social and literary topics, and over 2500 songs, including the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.

ROSINKA CHAUDHURI is Professor in Cultural Studies at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. She has been Visiting Fellow at the Southern Asian Institute, Columbia University, and Charles Wallace Fellow at Cambridge University. She is the author of
Gentlemen Poets in Colonial Bengal
,
Freedom and Beef-Steaks
and
The Literary Thing
. She has edited
Derozio, Poet of India
and co-edited
The Indian Postcolonial
. Her articles have appeared in various reputed journals including
Journal of Asian Studies
,
Social Text
,
Modern Asian Studies
and
Economic and Political Weekly
; she reviews for the
Book Review
and the
Times Literary Supplement
.