Rabindranath Tagore: The Post Office and Card Country

This translation of two of Tagore’s most famous plays reproduces his manuscripts in parallel with the translation, and is beautifully illustrated with drawings by the distinguished Bengali artist, Baniprosonno.  Published by Visva-Bharati Publishing Department, Kolkata, it comes as two separate volumes in a slip-case, and is distributed by Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd. www.orientblackswan.com

the dancing mouse/die tanzende maus

Consisting of the 14 very short poems that conclude William Radice’s recently completed book The Infinite Orchestra, this book was published in June 2008 in a fine, handset English-German edition by Hirundo Press in Hamburg, with translations and woodcuts by Caroline Saltzwedel.  For more information, see www.hirundo-press.com/books/dm.html

Teach Yourself Bengali

First published in 1994, and widely sold since then, this book has been revised, updated and re-set, and now has an additional English-Bengali Glossary compiled by Hanne-Ruth Thompson.

Frameworks: Four Metaphysical Poems 2003-6

This handsome book was printed in January 2007 at Stamperia Valdonega, Verona by Martino Mardersteig, son of Giovanni Mardersteig, the founder of Officini Bodoni, one of the world’s most famous fine presses.

Back-cover blurb:

This Theatre Royal is a book of three flamboyant poems based on biblical themes. ‘Jubilee Jonah’, subtitled ‘an email’, is in 100 stanzas of rhyme royal (7 lines per stanza) and links together the biblical story of Jonah, a brooding, suppressed homosexuality, the question of divine leniency and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. ‘The Translation of Ruth, a conference paper’ in 90 stanzas of ottava rima (8 lines per stanza), connects the creative process of translation with the story of Ruth, childbirth, linguistic lovemaking and strategically graded gender transmutations. ‘Our Lady of Chartres, an after-dinner speech’ in 80 Spenserian stanzas (9 lines per stanza), has a somewhat eccentric old man reflecting on his life and love of three ladies in the light of the windows of Chartres Cathedral, the temptations of Christ and Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Written on an epic scale, the poems are a challenge to every kind of fashion and orthodoxy.

Both Beauty, Be My Brahman and This Theatre Royal are beautifully bound in handloom sari-cloth, in a limited edition and at a very reasonable price.  BUY NOW WHILE STOCKS LAST!

From Penguin Books UK, a new (20^th anniversary) edition of Selected Poems of Tagore is now available; also a new edition of Selected Short Stories, and of Tagore’s novel The Home and the World, introduction by Anita Desai, preface and notes by William Radice. These are in the re-launched Penguin Classics series, and have striking new covers.  All these editions have lists of Further Reading.