Swami Vivekananda: and the Modernization of Hinduism

by William Radice (Editor)

This collection gives new depth to our understanding of the aims and achievements of Swami Vivekananda. It shows how modernizing trends in Indian society wrestled with traditional features of Hinduism such as caste and links his religious and social ideals to thinkers and theologians in the
West.

310 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 1998

About the author

William Radice was a British poet, writer and translator. He was also the senior lecturer in Bengali in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research area is in Bengali language and literature. He translated several Bengali works, and works by Rabindranath Tagore and Michael Madhusudan Dutt.
Radice adapted the text Debotar Grash by Rabindranath Tagore as an opera libretto, which was set to music by Param Vir as Snatched by the Gods. He wrote the libretto for a children's opera Chincha-Chancha Cooroo or The Weaver's Wedding with music by Bernard Hughes.
He published nine volumes of poetry ranging from Eight Sections (1974), Strivings (1980), Louring Skies (1985) and Gifts (2002) to his latest two books This Theatre Royal (2004) and Green, Red, Gold, a novel in 101 sonnets (2005) which were hailed by A.N. Wilson in The Daily Telegraph as stunning. He has also fore-worded the a collection of translated Tagore poems, Soaring High, written by Mira Rani Devi.
In 2002, he published the voluminous (784 pages) Myths and Legends of India, a collection of 112 of his own retellings with selections from P. Lal's ongoing transcreation of the Mahabharata. Along with the major Hindu myths, he included legends and folk tales from Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Syrian Christian and tribal sources.
His mother was the editor and translator Betty Radice.