One of Rabindranath Tagore’s most loved and beloved work, Gitanjali is a collection of 103 prose poems selected and translated from Bengali by Tagore. The thought-provoking poems in this book, based on the central theme of devotion and spiritualism, stir one’s soul and leave them immersed in deep thoughts. Gitanjali was first published in 1912 by the Indian Society of London and Tagore received his Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, predominantly for this book.
Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali short-story writer, poet, musician, composer, playwright, essayist and painter from India who was instrumental in transforming Indian art, especially Bengali literature and music, by introducing contextual modernism and new verses and prose. Both his prose and poetry were on varied topics and were considered to be magical and spiritual as visible in some of his noted works such as Gitanjali, Gora and Ghare-Baire. Referred to as the ‘Bard of Bengal’, his compositions were chosen as national anthems by India and Bangladesh while the Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work. He became the first non-European to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.