Mashi and Other Stories

by Rabindranath Tagore

Overview

Mashi and Other Stories (1918) is a collection of short stories by Rabindranath Tagore. Published after Tagore received the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, Mashi and Other Stories contains some of the author’s most beloved works of short fiction, including “Mashi,” “The Skeleton,” “The Postmaster,” and “The River Stairs.”

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789360433673
Publisher:	Wordsworth Publishing House
Publication date:	05/04/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	559 KB

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 UniversityCollege 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.