One of India's most cherished figures, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1914) was a novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist, painter, educationist and thinker, the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. He modernised Bengali literature, moving it away from its rigid classical form and strict linguistic structure. Known for works such as Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World,) his novels, short stories and verse are considered part of the greatest of world literature, famous for their exploration of the political and the personal. He also wrote the national anthem of India, Jana Gana Mana and of Bangladesh, Amar Shonar Bangla.
Poems from Puravi the Child is a collection of seven poems, translated by Kshitis Roy, the former curator of the Tagore Museum in Shantiniketan and the long-time editor of the Visva-Bharati Quarterly. The sources for these poems are Puranata, 'Fulfilment', Videshi Phul, 'Foreign Flower', Antarhita, 'The Phantom', Asamka, 'Faint Heart', Shesh Vasanta, 'The Last Spring' and Badal, 'The Exchange'. 'The Postscript' has been taken from Shesh Lekha, 'The Last Writing' (1941)
