Rabindra Nath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore  was a Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright who reshaped Bengali literature and music. As author of Gitanjali with its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" he was the first non-European and the only Indian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. His poetry in translation was viewed as spiritual, and this together with his mesmerizing persona gave him a prophet-like aura in the west. His "elegant prose and magical poetry" still remain largely unknown outside the confines of Bengal.

A Pirali Brahmin from KOLKATA, Tagore had been writing poetry since he was eight years old.At age 16, he published his first substantial poetry under the pseudonymBhanushingho ("Sun Lion")and wrote his first short stories and dramas in 1877. Tagore achieved further note when he denounced the British Raj and supported Indian independence. His efforts endure in his vast canon and in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.