An illuminating foray into the complex world of art and life from an
east/west dichotomous perspective. Tagore, in his extensive personal
experience and literary expertise, explains the differences,
assumptions, and pros and cons of eastern and western worldviews in a
tactful and succinct way.
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.