Orient BlackSwan

About the BookAbout the Author

There have been many sides to William Radice's life and career - poetry, Bengali, Tagore, germany, opera and more - and it has not been easy for his readers to keep up with them all. This book, for the first time, offers and an overview, by combining lectures he has given on visits to the subcontinent with a variety of articles and autobiographical pieces. Breaking down barriers between the literary and academic, the analytic and poetic, and east and west, the book is written throughout in Radice's characteristically personal, relaxed lucid style.

William Radice was born in London in 1951, and has pursued a double career as a poet and as a scholar and translator of Bengali. Known particularly for his translations of the poems, short stories and plays of Tagore, he has also published six books of his own poetry. In India, his fortnightly 'Letter from England' for the statesman has made him prominent as a journalist, and in his own country he is known for his broadcasts and for public readings of his work. He is keenly interested in music and opera, and has also translated from German. Since 1988 he has lectured in Bengali at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and from 1999 to 2002 was Head of the Departments of South and South East Asia. Author or editor of nearly thirty books, other recent publications have included Myths and Legends of India, A Hundred Letters from England and Traces of My Father, a translation of an autobiographical novel by the German writer Sigfrid Gauch.