‘When our nationalists talk about ideals, they forget that the basis of nationalism is wanting. The very people who are upholding these ideals are themselves the most conservative in their social practice.’ A Tagore classic four lectures that are part of a set of twelve books that have been translated by the Master himself.
One of India's most cherished figures, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1914) was a novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist, painter, educationist and thinker, the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. He modernised Bengali literature, moving it away from its rigid classical form and strict linguistic structure. Known for works such as Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World,) his novels, short stories and verse are considered part of the greatest of world literature, famous for their exploration of the political and the personal.