Rabindranath Tagore (1861‒1941) was a prolific playwright with more than thirty plays to his credit. He is also known for his life-long, passionate engagement with theatre, first at Jorasanko and then at Santiniketan, in multiple roles as actor, director, singer, musician. However, during his own life-time and even after his demise, his experimental plays have proved challenging for directors to stage. Time and again they have been written off as unstageable by prominent theatre makers. Further complications have arisen from the presence of a spectre of authority around Tagore and his plays often promoted by Visva-Bharati, the institution he founded and which held the copyright of his works till 2001. This book travels through time and space intending to untangle the enigma presented by Tagore’s plays. The book on one hand immerses itself into the archive of Tagore’s plays and his dramaturgy of them in order to problematize the ways in which they have been interpreted. On the other, it also engages with productions of Tagore’s plays during and after his life-time to understand the challenges directors have faced while staging them and the strategies they have embraced to circumvent them. While performing a subjective critical reading of the Tagore theatre-archive, an underlying objective of the book remains to understand the very concept of the archive, as it manifests itself in contemporary dramatic theatre.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) is one of India's best known cultural icons. He was, and still remains, one of the most influential national figures of India, whose genius has transcended boundaries. Besides being a poet, he was a novelist, a writer of short stories and plays, a composer of songs, an essayist, and a philosopher. Painting was the last art form to enter his rich creative life. This publication is produced in conjunction with the travelling exhibitions of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings, as part of India's National Commemoration of 150th Birth Anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, organised by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Since the whirlwind, 10-city international show that the poet-painter had undertaken in 1930, this is the first time that such a large body of Rabindranath's work is travelling internationally. Published in association with National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Discusses Tagore's uniquely varied output across literature, music, art, philosophy, history, politics, education and public affairs.

Radice, himself a recognized English poet and erudite scholar, delved into the deeper meaning of Tagore’s poems and songs, and discussed his ideas on education and the environment with an insight probably no other Westerner has. He also translated Tagore’s short stories and short poems, and finally was able to make a complete breakthrough by translating Gitanjali afresh and restoring Tagore’s original English manuscript. Martin Kämpchen lives in Santiniketan, West Bengal and Germany and is a reputed Tagore scholar and writer.

Study on the selected paintings of Abanindranath Tagore, 1871-1951, Indian painter; includes reproduction of the original paintings.