Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Writings for Children

This book extends the image of Rabindranath Tagore in the world’s eyes, and offers readers a rich insight into one of the most attractive yet least explored aspects of Rabindranath’s life and imagination. Rabindranath, the poet and sage, appears here as a writer for children in a number of veins—comic, whimsical, tender, serious. Among the variety of verses to be found here are delicate pieces originally written for an innovative Bengali textbook; delightful nonsense poetry and presentations of a child’s desires and fantasies; and narrative and didactic poems as simple as they are sober and unpatronizing. These verses appear alongside a range of other writing: short plays and sketches; short stories; chatty tales where everyday life blends with fantasy and witty philosophizing; and the more sustained fantasy of That Man. The collection is rounded off with a selection from Rabindranath’s accounts of his own childhood. The book also contains a wealth of illustrations by Rabindranath himself, his circle and the members of the Shantiniketan community. All in all, it constitutes a treasury of funny, colourful, thoughtful writing touched by the mind of an all-time genius. The translations were made by Sukanta Chaudhuri, Sukhendu Ray and Suvro Chatterjee. Sukanta Chaudhuri, the General Editor of The Oxford Tagore Translations series, has also contributed the introduction and detailed notes. This volume will provide readers—children and adults alike—with a window to a world rich in fantasy, wit, and expression.