Rabindranath Tagore an Illustrated Life

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Poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright, musician, painter, and founder of a new education at Santiniketan and Sriniketan, Rabindranath Tagore was one of India’s foremost creative minds. This biography covers the important phases of Rabindranath’s life from his childhood years in the Tagore household to becoming a poet and writer. It provides a perceptive account of the forces that moulded his life’s thought and action.

Exploring Rabindranath’s views and writings on the historical and political issues of the age, especially his thoughts and ideas on India’s history, nationalism and internationalism, religion, humanism, the nation’s self-esteem, as well as his experiments in education and rural reconstruction at Santiniketan, Sriniketan, and Visva-Bharati, Uma Das Gupta’s lucid narrative offers the key to understanding the quintessential renaissance man.

Profusely illustrated with rare photographs, this biography is an insightful journey of the genesis of Tagore as a creative personality, activist, critical thinker, and will appeal to readers across generations.

Professor Uma Das Gupta studied for her BA and MA in History at Presidency College, University of Calcutta, followed by a D.Phil. in the same subject from the University of Oxford. Her doctoral dissertation on late nineteenth century British Indian History was published as Rise of an Indian Public: Public Opinion and Public Policy in India, 1870-1880. Her postdoctoral research is on Rabindranath Tagore’s educational ideas and the history of his institutions at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, and Sriniketan.

Professor Das Gupta’s published works include Science and Modern India: An Institutional History, c. 1784-1947 (Pearson Longman 2010); The Oxford India Tagore: Selected Writings on Education and Nationalism (Oxford University Press 2009); Rabindranath Tagore: My Life in My Words (Penguin Books 2006); Rabirtdranath Tagore: A Biography (Oxford University Press 2004); A Difficult Friendship: Letters of Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore, 1913-1940 (Oxford University Press 2003); and Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis and Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Statistical Institute and Ananda Publishers, 2002), with the last work being in Bengali.

Currently as National Fellow, Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Simla, Professor Uma Das Gupta’s work is focused on exploring the place of Santiniketan in India’s nationalist history through the letters exchanged between C.F. Andrews, Rabindranath Tagore, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and Jawaharlal Nehru, 1913-40. She was formerly Research Professor, Social Sciences Division, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.