Six stories which showcase Rabindranath Tagore's breathtaking range and empathy. The first Asian winner of the Nobel Prize, his work - written in Bengal across the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries - has resonated for generations.
In 'The Hungry Stones', a traveller is seduced by supernatural visions in a haunted palace, while 'The Skeleton' gives voice to the dead in a tale of hidden passion. Tagore's humanity shines through in 'The Cabuliwallah', a moving account of an unlikely friendship between a peddler and a young girl, and 'The Home-Coming' offers a poignant study of a boy's longing for love. The Postmaster explores a rural orphan's quiet devotion, while 'Mashi' depicts an aunt's desperate attempts to shield her nephew from the reality of his failing marriage.
Through his stories with their recurring themes of love and heartbreak, Tagore captures both the lives of ordinary people and the common experiences of the human condition.
This series of pocket-sized paperbacks celebrates the art of the short story and marks Macmillan Collector's Library's 10th anniversary. Each contains a curated selection of short stories from a literary giant: Katherine Mansfield, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Alice Dunbar Nelson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rabindranath Tagore.
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Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1861, Rabindranath Tagore was an innovative polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music. In 1913 he became Asia's first Nobel Prize winner for his famous volume of verse and lyrics published as Gitanjali.
Tagore's creative output was staggering, encompassing thousands of songs as well as novels, lyrics and poems, plays, personal and political essays and paintings. However, it was through his short stories that he reshaped Bengali literature, introducing a less formal style whose freshness and psychological depth was so different from traditional classical writing.
With his elegant and charming prose, he captured the ordinary lives of both rural and urban dwellers whilst encompassing universal themes such as love, loyalty and hope. Tagore, who died in 1941, is remembered as India's most famous modern poet.