a book
Gora
Rabindranath Tagore · 1926 · 544 pages
Nobel Prize-winning author Rabindranath Tagore’s most ambitious work Gora unfolds against the vast, dynamic backdrop of Bengal under British rule, a divided society struggling to envisage an emerging nation. It is an epic saga of India’s nationalist awakening, viewed through the eyes of one young man, an orthodox Hindu who defines himself against the British colonialist culture and finds himself approaching his nationalist identity through the prism of organized religion. First published in 1907, Gora questions the dogmas and presuppositions inherent in nationalist thought like few books have dared to do. This new, lucid and vibrant translation brings the complete and unabridged text of the classic to a new generation of readers, underlining its contemporary relevance.
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Geetanjali Shree
“Rabindranath Tagore came out with his eponymous novel, Gora, in the first decade of the last century. Though confined to Calcutta at the turn of the century, the novel offers a pulsating account of renascent subject India struggling through antagonistic forces. The protagonist Gora searches for his true identity believing at the start, that he is the heir of a pristine pure Hindu tradition. But he realizes there is nothing narrowly pure in tradition and his self-searching ends in forces of love and amity trumping narrow sectarianism. The novel is a dream Tagore so long ago dreamt for India and for humankind. The dream in the intervening century and more has remained but a dream.”↗