The set of 12 books, brought out by Niyogi, contains five plays, as many poetry collections and two books of essays. They were translated by Tagore during the first and third decades of the 20th century at a time when Europe and America were reading everything written by him and were agog with the excitement of discovering an Eastern genius.
With the degradation of moral values in the Western civilisation and the spectre of another world war looming large before them, they looked up to Tagore as a possible saviour and felt moved by his vision of a unified universe.
Despite this topical allusion, the greatness of these books remains unchanged even after the lapse of a century and their appeal is as strong as ever.
"It is, indeed, a great honour to pay tribute on the commemoration of the 150th Birthday of Gurudev by publishing 15 titles. I am honoured to get this opportunity to make this humble contribution in our efforts to spread the written words about his great works, around the world," Bikash D Niyogi, managing director of Niyogi Books, told PTI.MORE