Of Myself: Atmaparichay

by Rabindranath Tagore, Joe Winter (Translator), Devadatta Joardar (Translator)

In the great Bengali poet's autobiographical writings we discover what his translators describe as a heart of love, a mind at its service that can cut like a knife, and in some sense the spirit of a child.' The six prose pieces, centering on the poet's quest, were composed at landmark moments during the second half of his life and published posthumously. At each point he looks back on a long creative journey. Here in their first English translation, the essays offer an insight into the intellectual and spiritual world of a twentieth-century genius. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) became the first non-Westerner to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He was poet and writer of fiction, composer and artist and playwright, educationalist and reformer. Among writers who translated his work were Gide, Neruda, Pasternak and Akhmatova. His world tours featured debates with figures as diverse as his friend and admirer Gandhi, Einstein, Ezra Pound and H.G. Wells. The national anthems of both India and Bangladesh are Tagore's compositions. Devadatta Joardar (born 1965) is a resident of Calcutta and a Bengali scholar. He works as an engineer but his interests take him into other fields. He occasionally writes for English-language dailies in India. Born in London in 1943, Joe Winter taught English before taking early retirement. He has lived in Calcutta since 1994. Anvil has published his translations of Rabindranath Tagore's Song Offerings (Gitanjali), his selection of poems by Jibanananda Das, Naked Lonely Hand and Das's collection of sonnets Bengal the Beautiful (Rupasi Bangla), and his own Calcutta poems Guest and Host . 

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

About the author

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 "because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."

Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting linguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.

The complete works of Rabindranath Tagore (রবীন্দ্র রচনাবলী) in the original Bengali are now available at these third-party websites:
http://www.tagoreweb.in/
http://www.rabindra-rachanabali.nltr....

Reviews

[Cougar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t know of Tagore until picking this up on a whim at a thrift store that lies hidden within a relatively closed off community of the higher class (of which I unfortunately have no belonging in) I would bring it with me to work, and read whatever I could at 7:30am in the frigid conditions of my car (I didn’t want to waste my car battery just for the sensuous pleasure of heat) Tagore’s poetics and wonder for the world’s being was the only presence of warmth in that hour. Sometimes when I would read him, I felt granules of faith that I too was being poured seamlessly into a vessel in spite of the immense pressure of experience that can make hoses sputter and spray in every direction of a compass.

I would recommend.