Tagore goes online in English and Bengali

Bichitra, (http://bichitra.jdvu.ac.in/index.php) an online variorum of the works of Rabindranath Tagore, will be launched on 8 May 2013. According to Abhijit Gupta, Associate Professor of English, Jadavpur University, and Director, Jadavpur University Press, it is the largest integrated site on any author, containing nearly all of his writings in Bengali and English, in all their versions, from manuscript to print, comprising 47,520 pages of manuscript and 91,637 pages of print. Other features of the website include text files of every version of each of Tagore's works, a unique collation software (the first in Indic script), a search engine that helps locate any word or phrase used in his works, a checklist of all Tagore's manuscripts and a comprehensive bibliography of Tagore's works. The website can be navigated in three languages--English, Bengali and Hindi. The project was executed in two years by the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, and was led by Sukanta Chaudhuri, emeritus professor at Jadavpur University.

The British Library celebrates Rabindranath Tagore

The British Library celebrates Rabindranath Tagore, with two performances of his greatest stage play The Post Office, and a night of poetry in English and Bengali, set to subtle jazz improvisation by Zoe and Idris Rahman.

The Post Office By Rabindranath Tagore

Friday 13 May 18.30 – 20.30 and repeated on Saturday 14 May 14.30- 16.30
The British Library Conference Centre

Marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Indian writer and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Written in 1912, The Post Office, rich in symbolism and allegory, is a play about man's passionate cry for spiritual freedom. Anita Desai called it 'as modest as a dew drop, as profound as the ocean.' Gandhi was spellbound by the play in Calcutta in 1917. Mixing simplicity with sophistication, its universal appeal has made it a world classic. Translated, and with a pre-performance talk by William Radice. Directed and produced by The Live Literature Company. www.liveliteraturecompany.co.uk

Tickets priced £7.50 (£5 Concessions) available at http://boxoffice.bl.uk/, by calling 01937 546546 (9am-5pm Mon-Fri) or in person at The British Library.


Flying Man (Pakshi-Manab): Poems for the 21st century by Rabindranath Tagore

Tuesday 17 May 18.30 – 20.00
The British Library Conference Centre

Translated and read in English by William Radice. The original Bengali read by Mukul Ahmed. With jazz improvisations by Zoe Rahman (piano) Idris Rahman (saxophone)

An opportunity to appreciate the poetry of the great Rabindranath Tagore, some of the most haunting and passionate in Indian and world literature. His ceaselessly inventive and remarkably modern verse may reflect on love and human yearning, on a universe both eternal and transient, or the simple joy of watching a grandchild play.

New translations over the last three decades have revealed this modernity. Our choice of poems for this programme will draw on William Radice's Selected Poems of Tagore (1985), his translation of Tagore's collected brief poems (2000) and his new translation for Penguin India of Tagore's most famous book, Gitanjali. Jazz improvisations by Zoe Rahman (piano) and Idris Rahman (saxophone) will connect the Tagore of 1912 with the Tagore of 2011 and the years to come.

Tickets priced £7.50 (£5 Concessions) available at http://boxoffice.bl.uk, by calling 01937 546546 (9am-5pm Mon-Fri) or in person at The British Library.