Golden Raft

I have often mentioned Tagore. Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his collection of mystical lyric poems, Gitanjali. Throughout his long life, Tagore has been a prolific poet, musician, novelist, short story writer, essayist, and playwright.

While he is successful in all these genres, it is his lyric poems that have earned him maximum acclaim. At a very early age, Tagore traveled to the Himalayas with his father, Maharshi Debendranath Tagore, who gave his young son lessons in the Upanishads, one of the primary Hindu scriptures. Tagore’s spirituality draws deeply from the Upanishads, and is reminiscent of other great mystic poets Rumi, Kabir, and Kahlil Gibran.

I would like to introduce you to Golden Raft, my collection of translations of Tagore’s mystical poetry, illustrated with Bill Carter’s photography.