The Essential Tagore is the largest collection of Rabindranath Tagore's works available in English. It was published by Harvard University Press in the United States and Visva-Bharati University in India to mark the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth. Fakrul Alam and Radha Chakrabarthy edited the anthology. Among the notable contributors who translated Tagore's works for this anthology are Amitav Ghosh, Amit Chaudhuri, Sunetra Gupta, Syed Manzoorul Islam, and Kaiser Haq. Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher, writer and critic proposed the book as the 'Book of the Year' in the New Statesman published on 21 November 2011.
The anthology is around eight hundred pages long, divided into ten sections, each devoted to a different facet of Tagore's achievement. In this anthology, the editors endeavored to represent his extraordinary achievements in ten genres: poetry, songs, autobiographical works, letters, travel writings, prose, novels, short stories, humorous pieces, and plays. Most of the translations were done in modern contemporary English. Besides the new translations, it includes a sampling of works originally composed in English, Tagore's translations of his own works.
Critical reception "A hundred years from nowWho could you beReading my poems curiouslyA hundred years from now!How can I transit to you who are so far awayA bit of joy I feel this dayAt this new spring dawn." — A Hundred Years from Now, The Essential Tagore P. 243 Initial reviews for the Essential Tagore were almost all positive. Immediately after the publication, it received positive reviews worldwide. Barry Hill in the Australian welcomed the publication as "a wonderful job" and "almost all gold". Praising the editors and translators, Amartya Sen exclaimed that though the excellence of Tagore's work is difficult to preserve in translation, they did a splendid job of producing a beautiful volume of selections from Tagore's vast body of writings. He also praised Amit Chaudhuri for his enjoyable and remarkably far-reaching foreword. In Times Literary Supplement Seamus Perry wrote that the anthology testifies to Tagore's capability in many diverse modes, and quite distinct aspects of his genius. In the magazine Bookforum, Aravind Adiga opined that the anthology reintroduced a great writer to the world. Amardeep Singh of Open Letters Monthly thought that the Essential Tagore "dwarfes(ed) all previous efforts" that were made to translate Tagore's work into English.
Contents of the book
List of Illustrations Foreword: Poetry as Polemic by Amit Chaudhuri Introduction
1. Autobiography Autobiographical From Reminiscences From Boyhood Days My School
2. Letters From Torn Leaves From Letter-Fragments To Mrinalini Devi To Jagadish Chandra Bose To Myron H. Phelps To William Rothenstein To Robert Bridges To James Drummonds Anderson To Lord Chelmsford To Charles Freer Andrews To Kanti Chandra Ghosh To Edward John Thompson To Kazi Nazrul Islam To Romain Rolland To Sir William Rothenstein To Mahatma Gandhi To Mahadev Desai To Sufia Kamal To Pulinbehari Sen To Victoria Ocampo To Revd. Foss Westcott
3. Prose From Self-Reliance and Other Essays Statecraft and Ethics The Components of Literature The Significance of Literature The Problem of Self Nationalism in the West The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech From Thoughts from Rabindranath Tagore My Pictures Hindus and Muslims The Tenant Farmer Crisis in Civilization
4. Poems The Fountain's Awakening Enough, Enough! Life Undressed Breasts Kissing The Golden Boat The Two Birds I Won't Let You Go Unfathomable Voyage without End To Civilization My Little Plot of Land A Hundred Years from Now The Lord of Life Love Queries Krishnakali The Poet The Hero Big and Small Astronomy On the Day Thou Breakst Through This My Name More Life, My Lord Thy Rod of Justice The Day I Depart It Hasn't Rained in My Heart When Life Dries Up If the Day Ends This Stormy Night A Flight of Geese The Restless One Dawn and Dusk Free! Sunday Hymn to the Tree Woman Empowered Wind Instrument Letter Writing An Ordinary Woman Camellia The Twenty-Fifth of Baisakh I Africa I Saw in the Twilight Romantic The Night Train Waking Up in the Morning I See They Work On the Banks of Roop-Naran The Sun of the First Day Dark Nights of Sorrow On the Way to Creation
5. Songs Devotional Songs Patriotic Songs Love Songs Songs of Nature Miscellaneous Songs
6. Plays Roktokorobi The Kingdom of Cards
7. Stories The Return of Khoka Babu The Legacy Shubha Mahamaya The In-Between Woman Hungry Stone A Broken Nest The Wife's Letter The Final Word The Tale of a Muslim Woman
8. Novels From Gora From Connections From Farewell Song From Four Chapters
9. Humor Denge the Black Ant's Observations Aryans and Non-Aryans The Funeral Ordeal Testing the Student The Invention of Shoes From Out of Sync
10. Travel Writing The City of Bombay Crossing the Ocean Travel Stopford Brooke The English Village and the Clergy From Journey to Japan Letter to Pratima Devi From Letters from Russia From In Persia Chronology Notes Glossary Further Reading Acknowledgments Contributors
References