Four Chapters

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was aware of the potentially volatile contet of Char Adhyay, his last and thirteenth novel, written when he was seventy two. Who is a real patriot? Is liberation to be achieved by rhetorical slogans, ascetic militarism, conformity and ruthless external discipline? How can one be true to one's self in the making of a nation? Questions that make this tragic story of two lovers central to our times. The only existing English translation (edited ruthlessly for a foreign readership) was serialised in 1936 and came out as a book as late as 1950. This is the first complete translation of the Bangla novel. The Afterword by Rimil Bhattacharya relates the controversial history of the novel and draws the reader's attention to the poetry in this book.