An exceptional Folio edition celebrating more than 700 years of Dante’s monumental work, The Divine Comedy is illustrated by Neil Packer and includes an exclusive essay by Jhumpa Lahiri.
Gitanjali
Illustrated by Anagh Banerjee
Introduced by Amit Chaudhuri
Gitanjali won the 1913 Nobel Prize for literature, elevating Bengali author Rabindranath Tagore to the world’s stage. Folio presents the first ever illustrated edition, with woodcuts by artist Anagh Banerjee and an exclusive introduction by author Amit Chaudhuri.
£44.95
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‘Gitanjali is a love poem, not only to a higher being, but also to the concept of what it means to be in love. With delicate woodcuts by Anagh Banerjee and an insightful intro by acclaimed author Amit Chaudhuri, this is the ultimate edition of a poem that forever changed the poetic canon.’
- Sinéad O'Callaghan, Fiction Editor, The Folio Society
Navigating themes of divine love, relationships, life’s turbulances and moments of peace, Gitanjali is a baptism of classic poetry and Bengali culture. This new illustrated edition by Folio places a spotlight on an essential work that helped to expand the canon of modern poetry beyond the western plains and introduced audiences to one of the most important writers in 20th century literature.
Often referred to as ‘The Shakespeare of the East’, Rabindranath Tagore is a central figure in Bengali and Indian history, reshaping art and literature through his poems, novels, short stories and plays. His captivating style is treasured for its hypnotic rhythms, striking imagery and overflow of the soul – gorgeously captured by artist Anagh Banerjee's delicate woodcuts scattered throughout Folio’s edition. In his introduction, novelist Amit Chaudhuri not only explores Tagore’s writings in relation to the text itself, but also responds to the Gitanjali’s original 1913 introduction by W. B. Yeats, further contextualising the title’s history and nuances for new and old readers alike.
Bound in printed and blocked cloth
Typeset in Arno
136 pages
Six integrated full-page woodcuts
Slipcase with blocked motif
8¾˝ x 5½˝
Printed in Slovakia
‘Tagore’s Bengali songs are unprecedented in their preoccupation with superfluity, objectless excess, and an intense sense of limitlessness.’
- Amit Chaudhuri, from his introduction
Moving, mystic and mesmerising, Gitanjali moves through matters of intimacy, death and spirituality with a grace and vulnerability that has continued to inspire readers since its first publication in 1910. The tenderness in Tagore’s prose goes much deeper than its English translation, a concept Amit Chaudhuri unpicks in his introduction. Rather than holding the original Bengali collection of songs in our hands, the English version is a vaster collection of Tagore’s works, the writer having selected prose from at least four different books. Working in dialogue with Yeats’ original foreward, Chaudhuri explores the complexities of legacy and discovery, and how this can both enrich and diminish a piece of work: ‘It is a reminder of the possibilities that existed in 1912, possibilities that widened and enriched the trajectory of modern poetry and the reach of a new intercultural world only beginning to be discovered.’ Despite the differences between the English and Bengali versions, the theme at the heart of Gitanjali remains true. Love is boundless in all its forms and this Folio edition captures the legacy of Tagore’s writings in a way that will stay with you long beyond its last page.
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