Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s notebook of Bengali poems and songs, which he had gifted to a close family friend in 1930s, has been put on sale by a descendant of that family in New York.
The previously unknown notebook, dated to 1928 autumn, is estimated to sell for upto $250,000 by Sotheby’s, which will auction it on December 12.
Tagore, born in Calcutta in 1861, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, making him the first Asian Nobel laureate. He wrote fiction, plays, poems, songs, composed music for his songs, and painted. He was also an educator, social reformer and philosopher.
Tagore, who died in 1941, was a prolific writer and the notebook contains handwritten versions of 12 poems and lyrics for 12 songs in Bengali, some of whom were used or published later. Mon je bale chini chini is one of the songs of particular significance in the notebook. “Two of the lyrics in the notebook were later included in the dance drama Chitrangada,” Sotheby’s said.