My Life In My Words

‘It is not easy to know oneself . . . I have made different attempts to make sense of my life . . . The only thing I have been able to conclude about
myself is that I am a poet, nothing else, no matter all the other things I may have done with my life.’

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. Though known primarily as a poet and writer, Tagore was also a painter, composer and philosopher, an educationist and rural reformer.

My Life in My Words is, quite literally, Tagore on Tagore. Uma Das Gupta draws upon the vast repertoire of Tagore’s writings—his autobiographical works, speeches, letters and poems—to create a vivid portrait of the life and times of one of India’s most influential cultural icons. The result is a rare glimpse into the world of Rabindranath Tagore: his family of pioneering entrepreneurs, saints, poets and composers who shaped his world view; 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.