Stray Birds (Mint Editions (Voices From API)) - Softcover

Tagore, Rabindranath

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1513215892 ISBN 13: 9781513215891

Publisher: Mint Editions, 2021

Synopsis

Stray Birds (1916) is a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore. Translated into English by Tagore after he received the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, Stray Birds is a powerful collection of short poems by a master of Indian literature. “Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.” The poems of Stray Birds are a masterclass in clarity and concision. Like birds themselves, they flutter across the sky of the page before passing beyond the limit of sight. In prayer, in celebration, and in evocations of the natural world, Tagore comes as close to the truth as possible, catching a glimpse before it can fly away forever: “Let me live truly, my Lord, so that death to me become true.” In plainspoken language, Tagore gives voice to the soul. This edition of Rabindranath Tagore’s Stray Birds is a classic of Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.

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About this title

About the Author

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was an Indian poet, composer, philosopher, and painter from Bengal. Born to a prominent Brahmo Samaj family, Tagore was raised mostly by servants following his mother’s untimely death. His father, a leading philosopher and reformer, hosted countless artists and intellectuals at the family mansion in Calcutta, introducing his children to poets, philosophers, and musicians from a young age. Tagore avoided conventional education, instead reading voraciously and studying astronomy, science, Sanskrit, and classical Indian poetry. As a teenager, he began publishing poems and short stories in Bengali and Maithili. Following his father’s wish for him to become a barrister, Tagore read law for a brief period at University College London, where he soon turned to studying the works of Shakespeare and Thomas Browne. In 1883, Tagore returned to India to marry and manage his ancestral estates. During this time, Tagore published his Manasi (1890) poems and met the folk poet Gagan Harkara, with whom he would work to compose popular songs. In 1901, having written countless poems, plays, and short stories, Tagore founded an ashram, but his work as a spiritual leader was tragically disrupted by the deaths of his wife and two of their children, followed by his father’s death in 1905. In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first lyricist and non-European to be awarded the distinction. Over the next several decades, Tagore wrote his influential novel The Home and the World (1916), toured dozens of countries, and advocated on behalf of Dalits and other oppressed peoples.

From the Back Cover

“Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.” Tagore’s poems ring with universal truth. Grounded in tradition and the poet’s philosophical vision, they remain timeless and borderless, as fresh today as they were a century ago. Stray Birds is a poetry collection by Rabindranath Tagore.

Edition details

• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1513215892
• ISBN 13: 9781513215891
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64