Selected Writing for Children

The poet and sage here appears as a writer for children in a number of veins - comic, whimsical, tender, serious. Among the variety of verses to be found here are delicate pieces originally written for an innovative Bengali textbook; delightful nonsense poetry and presentations of a child's desires and fantasies; and narrative and didactic poems as simple as they are sober and unpatronizing. These verses appear alongside a range of other writing: short plays and sketches; short stories; chatty tales where everyday life blends with fantasy and witty philosophizing. The collection is rounded off with a selection from Rabindranath's accounts of his own childhood. Most of theses pieces have never been translated before. Many of them would have been considered untranslatable. The book also contains a wealth of illustrations by Rabindranath himself, his circle and the members of the Santiniketan community. The book offers readers a rich insight into one of the most attractive yet least explored aspects of Rabindranath's life and imagination. More obviously, it constitutes a treasury of funny, colourful, thoughtful writing touched by the mind of an all-time genius.