Rabindranath Tagore

February 2011

  

Born in Calcuta, India, Tagore studied Law in England from 1878 to 1880. He went back to his country in 1890 to run his family’s farms, and dedicated himself to the development of health and education projects and agriculture. With a philosophical formation, he creates a school in 1901 dedicated to teaching western and eastern culture and philosophy. Tagore participated in the Indian nationalist movement and was Mahatmas Gandhi´s personal friend.


As a writer, he became famous in India in the early years of his career, becoming notorious in the West when his writings were published translated to English. His poetic work comprehends 3 thousand poems in bengali language on religious, political and social themes. In 1913, he becomes the first asian writter to be awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1919 he declines the title of Sir offered to him by the British Crown four years earlier as a protest against British policy regarding Punjab.