An enduring icon of India, Rabindranath Tagore made extraordinary contributions as an artist, nationalist, educationist and philosopher. Deeply aware of the historical significance of his times, he built on the heritage of nineteenth-century Indian renaissance to become one of the makers of the modern Indian mind. \n \nIn this first-of-its-kind intellectual biography, historian Sabyasachi Bhattacharya sketches a compelling portrait of a Tagore who was innately sceptical, self-critical and tormented by conflicts in his 'inner life'. He draws on letters, autobiographical accounts and literary works, some translated for the first time, to explore Tagore's chief dilemmas. He reveals how despite Tagore's apparently contradictory ideas on patriotism and international humanism, modernity and traditional practices, secularism and religious influence, there was a unified vision that tied together his diverse oeuvre.\n \nThoroughly researched and evocatively written, Rabindranath Tagore: An Interpretation offers profound insights into Tagore's life and multiple influences that shaped his genius.
About the Author
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, former professor of history at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and chairman, Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), has served as vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan. He has also held research and teaching positions at St Antony's College at Oxford University, the University of Chicago, and El Colegio de Mexico. His recent publications: The Colonial State: Theory and Practice (2016), The Defining Moments in Bengal, 1920-1947 (2014), Vande Mataram: the Biography of a Song (2013), Talking Back: the Idea of Civilization in the Indian Nationalist Discourse (2011), and now in seventh imprint, The Mahatma and the Poet: Letters and Debates Between Gandhi and Tagore, 1915-1941 (2008).
