Abstract
The hype around the sesquicentenary of Rabindranath Tagore’s birth in 2011 and the centenary of his Nobel Laureateship in 2013 for some time outshone the overall trajectory of the sage’s reputation in South Asia’s public spheres. While Tagore has been firmly inscribed into India’s and Bangladesh’s cultural memory, it rests on a shifting basis. Since Tagore’s death, the focus of reactions to his work across his wide productive range has moved from a real presence into a ritualised one which in turn has progressed into commemorative nostalgia. This gradual movement can be traced most clearly in the South Asian diaspora, expressed by writers from Nirad Chaudhuri through Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Sunetra Gupta, Vikram Seth, Shashi Tharoor, Monica Ali and Arvind Adiga. It is being continued most reflexively in Amit Chaudhuri’s attempts at negotiating Tagore’s legacy for the present time.
Works Cited
Adiga, Arvind (2013). Between the Assassinations. London: Atlantic Books.Search in Google Scholar
Alam, Fakrul and Radha Chakravarty, eds. (2011). Rabindranath Tagore. The EssentialTagore. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Ali, Monica (2003). Brick Lane. London: Doubleday.Search in Google Scholar
Ali, Monica (2011). “Interview: Monica Ali, author.” Interview. The Scotsman. April 8. <http://www.scotsman.com/news/interview-monica-ali-author-1-1587159> (January 9, 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter (1995–2000). Gesammelte Briefe. Christoph Gödde and Henri Lonitz, eds. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Search in Google Scholar
Bose, Sugata (n.d.). “Tagore and Asian Universalism.” Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre. <nsc.iseas.edu.sg> (PDF) (January 9, 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2000a). Freedom Song. Three Novels. New York, NY: Random House.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2000b). A New World. London: Picador.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2002). Real Time. Stories and a Reminiscence. New York, NY: Picador.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2003). “The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore.” Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, ed. An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 103–115.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2008). Clearing a Space. Reflections on India, Literature and Culture. Oxford: Peter Lang.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2009). The Immortals. London: Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2011). “Foreword: Poetry as Polemic.” Alam Fakrul and Radha Chakravarty, eds. Rabindranath Tagore, The Essential Tagore. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, xv–xxxiv.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2013a). Calcutta. Two Years in the City. London: Union Books.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Amit (2013b). Telling Tales. Selected Writings, 1993–2013. London: Union Books.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Nirad C. (1987). Thy Hand, Great Anarch: India 1951–1952. London: Chatto and Windus.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Nirad C. (2001). The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. New York, NY: New York Review Books.Search in Google Scholar
Desai, Anita (1989). Baumgartner’s Bombay. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Desai, Anita (2011). “In Conversation: Kiran Desai meets Anita Desai.” Interview. Guardian. November 11. <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/11/kiran-desai-anita-desai-in-conversation> (July 23, 2012).Search in Google Scholar
Desai, Anita (1994). “Re-Reading Tagore.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 29.1, 5–14.10.1177/002198949402900102Search in Google Scholar
Dutta, Krishna and Andrew Robinson (2009). Rabindranath Tagore. The Myriad-Minded Man. London: Tauris.Search in Google Scholar
Ghosh, Amitav (2002). The Imam and the Indian. Prose Pieces. Delhi: Ravi Dayal.Search in Google Scholar
Gupta, Sunetra (1993). Memories of Rain. London: Phoenix.Search in Google Scholar
Gupta, Sunetra (n.d.) “Memories of Rain.” Review. <www.sunetragupta.com/Memoriesofrain.asp> (July 8, 2012).Search in Google Scholar
Kämpchen, Martin (2011). “Rabindranath Tagore’s Integration in die europäische Kultur.” Goman Abu Zakaria, ed. Rabindranath Tagore. Wanderer zwischen Welten. Ulm/Münster: Klemm + Oelschläger, 95–108.Search in Google Scholar
Lahiri, Jhumpa (2014). The Lowland. New York, NY: Random House.Search in Google Scholar
Mehta, Gita (1998). Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India. London: Vintage.Search in Google Scholar
Roy, Arundhati (2014). Capitalism. A Ghost Story. London/New York, NY: Verso.Search in Google Scholar
Rushdie, Salman (1987). The Jaguar Smile. A Nicaraguan Journey. London: Pan.Search in Google Scholar
Rushdie, Salman (2002). Step Across this Line. Collected Non-Fiction 1992–2002. New York, NY: Random House.Search in Google Scholar
Rushdie, Salman (2008). Midnight’s Children. London: Vintage.Search in Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (2005). The Argumentative Indian. Writings on Indian Culture, History andIdentity. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Seth, Vikram (1993). A Suitable Boy. London: Phoenix House.Search in Google Scholar
Smith, Zadie (2000). White Teeth. London: Hamish Hamilton.Search in Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2002). “Ethics and Politics in Tagore, Coetzee, and Certain Scenes of Teaching.” Diacritics 32, 3–4; 17–31.10.1353/dia.2005.0001Search in Google Scholar
Tharoor, Shashi (2005). Bookless in Bhagdad. Reflection on Writing and Writers. New York, NY: Arcade.Search in Google Scholar
Wiemann, Dirk (2008). Genres of Modernity. Contemporary Indian Novels in English. Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi.10.1163/9789401206549Search in Google Scholar
©2015 by De Gruyter