Let’s celebrate Bengali New Year with these new translations from our Bangla list. It’s your chance to read these timeless stories by some of India’s most loved Bengali authors and we assure you that you won’t find anything lost in the translation. So, scroll through these special recommendations and start reading!
Four Chapters
Four Chapters || Rabindranath Tagore
Char Adhyay (1934) was Rabindranath Tagore’s last novel, and perhaps the most controversial. Passion and politics intertwine in this narrative, set in the context of nationalist politics in pre-Independent India. Ela, a young working woman, comes under the spell of Indranath, a charismatic political activist who advocates the use of terror for the nationalist cause. She takes a vow never to marry, and to devote her life to the nationalist struggle. But she falls in love with Atindra, a poet and romantic from a decadent aristocratic family. Through their relationship, she becomes aware of the hollowness of Indranath’s politics. Afraid that she might expose them to the police, the political group gives Atin the task of eliminating Ela. In the dramatic final sequence of the novel, Ela offers herself to Atin, with tragic consequences.
This new translation, intended for twenty-first-century readers, will bring Tagore’s text to life in a contemporary idiom, while evoking the flavour of the story’s historical setting.
Aranyak
Aranyak || Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Translated from the Bengali by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay
Aranyak, written in 1939, is a famous Bengali novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay based on his long and arduous years in northern Bihar. There he came into contact with a part of the world that, even now, remains unknown to most of us. ‘Aranyak’ literally means ‘Of the Forest’.
This novel explores the simple and heart-warming story of a man who gets a job as an estate manager in Bihar, and slowly falls in love with the beautiful and tranquil forest around him. The dichotomy of urban and rural life comes alive, reflecting the great love that human beings and nature can share, one that Bandyopadhyay experienced in his heart. Written by one of the greatest Bengali authors, this haunting novel is rooted in guilt and sadness but also tremendous beauty.
Malloban
Malloban || Jibanananda Das
Malloban is set in North Calcutta in the winter of 1929. The eponymous protagonist, a lower-middle-class office worker, lives in College Street-a locality known for its bookstores, publishing houses, and universities-with his wife Utpala and their daughter Monu. The novel unfolds through a series of everyday scenes of dysfunction and discontent: bickering about bathrooms and budgeting, family trips to the zoo and the movies, a visit from Utpala’s brother’s family which displaces Malloban to a boarding house, and the appearance of a frequent late-night visitor to Utpala’s upstairs bedroom. Meanwhile, the daughter Monu bears the brunt of her parents’ “unlove.”
Arguably the most beloved poet in modern Bangla after Tagore, Jibanananda wrote a significant number of novels and short stories discovered and published after his death. Malloban is his most popular novel.
Can’t wait to read these gems and some more? Then, bookmark the Classics Store online to keep your reading list up to date!
7th May commemorates the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. His eminence as India’s greatest modern poet remains unchallenged to this day. 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 novels; plays; essays on religious, social and literary topics; some sixty collections of verse; over a hundred short stories; and more than 2500 songs, including the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
Born in 1861, Rabindranath Tagore 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.
Here is a compilation of some of his work, to celebrate the man.
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The Magic of Tagore
The Magic of Tagore ||.
A special limited-edition collection of the most beloved works of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, one of the greatest writers of the Indian subcontinent, featuring two classic novels of profound depth and beauty, and Tagore’s ground-breaking work of poetry. These classic works have been reissued by Penguin Random House India on the occasion of Tagore’s birth month.
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Nationalism and Home and the World
Nationalism Home and the World || .
Combining two classic texts by Rabindranath Tagore, this special edition features a new Introduction by eminent scholar Sugata Bose. Nationalism is based on Tagore’s lectures, warning the world of the disasters of narrow sectarianism and xenophobia. Home and the World is a classic novel, exploring the ever-relevant themes of nationalism, violent revolution and women’s emancipation.
Tagore: The World Voyager
Tagore: The World Voyager || Sugata Bose (Translator)
For long considered untranslatable, Tagore’s songs express most profoundly his romantic and religious perceptions. Prof. Bose aims to convey the artistic value of Tagore’s songs beyond the limits of his province. The first part, ‘Oceanic Songs’, introduces the lyrics and tunes of the songs to a foreign audience through a narrative of Tagore’s travels during which he communicated with the wider world. Since Tagore wrote only forty of his nearly 2500 songs on his journeys abroad, the second part presents a selection of ‘songs in five genres’. This book endeavours to reach Tagore’s songs to people beyond the borders of India, transcending the barriers of language on the wings of music.
The Postmaster: Selected Stories
The Postmaster || .
Poet, novelist, painter and musician Rabindranath Tagore created the modern short story in India. Written in the 1890s, during a period of relative isolation, his best stories—included in this selection—recreate vivid images of life and landscapes. They depict the human condition in its many forms: innocence and childhood; love and loss; the city and the village; the natural and the supernatural. Tagore is India’s great Romantic. These stories reflect his profoundly modern, original vision. Translated and introduced by William Radice, this edition includes selected letters, bibliographical notes and a glossary.
Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Poems
Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Poems || .
The poems of Rabindranath Tagore are among the most haunting and tender in Indian and world literature, expressing a profound and passionate human yearning. His ceaselessly inventive works deal with such subjects as the interplay between God and mortals, the eternal and the transient, and the paradox of an endlessly changing universe that is in tune with unchanging harmonies. Poems such as “Earth” and “In the Eyes of a Peacock” present a picture of natural processes unaffected by human concerns, while others, as in “Recovery14,” convey the poet’s bewilderment about his place in the world. And exuberant works such as “New Rain” and “Grandfather’s Holiday” describe Tagore’s sheer joy at the glories of nature or simply in watching a grandchild play.
My Life in My Words
My Life in My Words || Uma Das Gupta (Editor)
A unique autobiography that provides an incomparable insight into the mind of a genius. The Renaissance man of modern India, Rabindranath Tagore put his country on the literary map of the world when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. My Life in My Words is, quite literally, Tagore on Tagore. The result is a rare glimpse into the world of Tagore: his family of pioneering entrepreneurs who shaped his worldview; the personal tragedies that influenced some of his most eloquent verse; his ground-breaking work in education and social reform; his constant endeavour to bring about a synthesis of the East and the West and his humanitarian approach to politics; and his rise to the status of an international poet. Meticulously researched and sensitively edited, this unique autobiography provides an incomparable insight into the mind of a genius.
A Grain of Sand: Chokher Bali
A Grain of Sand || .
Chokher Bali is Nobel Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore’s classic exposition of an extramarital affair that takes place within the confines of a joint family. A compelling portrayal of the complexity of relationships and of human character, this landmark novel is just as powerful and thought-provoking today as it was a hundred years ago, when it was written.
Gora
Gora || .
When Gora had no name, caste, and religion, the circumstances gave him the name – goramohan, caste – Brahmin, and religion – Hindu. While he turned out to be a true advocate of Hinduism, the religion rejected him calling him an outcaste and an untouchable. In this classic masterpiece, Tagore represents the tragedy of Gora in the form of problems faced by all Indian religions.
He: (Shey)
He (Shey) || .
Tagore wrote Shey to satisfy his nine year old granddaughter’s demands for stories. Even as Tagore began to create his fantasy, he planned a story that had no end, and to keep the tales spinning he employed the help of ‘Shey’, a “man constituted entirely of words” and rather talented at concocting tall tales. So we enter the world of Shey’s extraordinary adventures, encountering a bizarre cast of characters, grotesque creatures and caricatures of contemporary figures and events as well as mythological heroes and deities – all brought to life through a sparkling play of words and illustrations in Tagore’s unique style.
Farewell Song
Farewell Song || .
Rabindranath Tagore reinvented the Bengali novel with Farewell Song, blurring the lines between prose and poetry and creating an effervescent blend of romance and satire. Through Amit and Labanya and a brilliantly etched social milieu, the novel addresses contemporary debates about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ writing, the nature of love and conjugality, and the influence of Western culture on Bengali society. Set against the idyllic backdrop of Shillong and the mannered world of elite Calcutta society, this sparkling novel expresses the complex vision and the mastery of style that characterized Tagore’s later works.
Gitanjali
Gitanjali || William Radice (Translator)
Gitanjali (Penguin Hardback Classics) is a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore. This is the English translation of the original Bengali poems. Gitanjali became immensely popular across the globe and was eventually translated into several languages. The book is known for its unmatched style of presentation, fresh poetic structure and spiritual musings.
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Share this with someone who is fond of – or needs an introduction to – Rabindranath Tagore’s work!
Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861. He was the fourteenth child of Debendranath Tagore, head of the Brahmo Samaj. Their family house at Jorasanko was a hive of cultural and intellectual activity and Tagore started writing at an early age. He was a prolific writer; his works include poems, novels, plays, short stories, essays and songs. Late in his life Tagore also took up painting, exhibiting in Moscow, Berlin, Paris, London and New York. He died in 1941. Born in Dehradun in 1958, and educated in Delhi and Calcutta, Ramachandra Guha pursued an academic career for ten years before becoming a full-time writer. He was named one of the hundred most influential intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction of Tagore’s Nationalism written by Ram Guha.
‘Why Tagore?’ asked a brilliant young mathematician of me recently. He was referring to a newspaper column where I had spoken of Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi,
Jawaharlal Nehru and B.R. Ambedkar as the ‘four founders’ of modern India. ‘I can see why you singled out the other three,’ said the mathematician. ‘Gandhi led the freedom movement, Nehru nurtured the infant Indian state, Ambedkar helped write its Constitution and gave dignity to the oppressed.
But why Tagore?’ My questioner was no ordinary Indian. He comes from a family of distinguished scholars and social reformers. Like his father and grandfather before him, he had been educated at a great Western university but came back to work in India. Like them, he is well read and widely travelled, and yet deeply attached to his homeland. He fluently speaks three Indian languages. If an Indian of his sensibility had to be convinced of Tagore’s greatness (or relevance), what then of all the others?
Tagore’s reputation, within India and outside it, has suffered from his being made a parochial possession of one province, Bengal. It was in Bengali that he wrote his poems, novels, plays and songs, works that are widely read and regularly performed seven decades after his death. The poet Subhas Mukhopadhyay recalls ‘a time when the elite of Bengal fought among themselves to monopolise Tagore. They tried to seal off Tagore, cordoning him away from the [sic] hoipolloi.’ Then he adds: ‘There was another trend, serving the same purpose, but in a different way. In the name of ideology and as the sole representative of the masses, some tried to protect the proletariat from the bourgeois poet’s harmful influence!
The Bengali communists have since taken back their hostility to Tagore—now, they quote his verses and sing his lyrics with as much gusto as their (bourgeois) compatriots.
But he remains the property of his native heath alone. This geographical diminution of the man and his reputation has been commented upon by that other great world traveller and world citizen of Bengali extraction, the sitar player Ravi Shankar. In his autobiography, the musician writes that ‘being Bengali, of course, makes it natural for me to feel so moved by Tagore; but I do feel that if he had been born in the West he would now be [as] revered as Shakespeare and Goethe . . .
He is not as popular or well-known worldwide as he should be. The Vishwa Bharati are guarding everything he did too jealously, and not doing enough to let the entire world know of his greatness.’
Ravi Shankar compared Tagore to the German genius Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 1832); so, before him, had the critic Buddhadeva Bose. Both men, remarked Bose, ‘participate[d] in almost everything’.Certainly, no one since Goethe worked in so many different fields and did original things in so many of them. Tagore was a poet, a novelist, a playwright, a lyricist, a composer and an artist. He had good days and bad, but at his best he was outstanding in each of these fields.
Tagore’s poems and stories are mostly set in Bengal. However, in his non-fiction, that is to say in his letters, essays, talks and polemics, he wrote extensively on the relations between the different cultures and countries of the world. Tagore, notes Humayun Kabir, ‘was the first great Indian in recent times who went out on a cultural mission for restoring contacts and establishing friendships with peoples of other countries without any immediate or specific educational, economic, political or religious aim. It is also remarkable that his cultural journeys were not confined to the western world’. He visited Europe and North America, but also Japan, China, Iran, Latin America and Indo-China.
Read the complete introduction by Ramachandra Guha in the new edition of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nationalism. Get your copy here.
Rabindranath Tagore was a poet-philosopher who inspired a whole generation through his writings. Rabindranath Tagore became a literary sensation and went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. To celebrate Tagore’s birthday, we bring here sections of five of his most beloved poems!
On the Hypocrisy of Faith On the Vulnerability at the Time of Death
On the Soul of Countries and People On Missing a Dear One
On Longing Do you, too, have a Rabindranath Tagore poem to share? What are your favourite lines of his? Tell us, we would love to know!
More lovingly called Gurudev, Rabindranath Tagore is one of India’s most cherished renaissance figures. He is credited with putting India on the literary map when he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
While best known as a poet, Rabindranath Tagore was also a gifted painter, a novelist, dramatist, essayist, an educator, and a philosopher. His works continue to help people dream of a better world, even in the darkest of times.
As we countdown to his birthday, here are 5 reasons that prove that this great man was way ahead of his time. The time he returned his knighthood
How many artists would’ve had the courage to do this? His views on women
Here’s someone born more than a hundred years ago whose views on women are, arguably, still ahead of the times. His take on the dangers of nationalism
A message that will never cease to be apt. Gurudev and the society
His works for social reform has been largely overshadowed by his literary achievements, but there are fewer voices bigger who tried to remove the evils from Indian society. A deserving and Nobel man
He was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize.
Rabindranath Tagore’s life and his works are examples where excellence is enshrined, and yet, at their core are inspiringly human.
For more amazing facts of the remarkable Rabindranath Tagore, you’d want to pick Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation.
