Gitanjali (or "Song Offerings" in English) is Bengali author and poet Rabindranath Tagore's poetry collection, first published in Bengali in 1910 and in English in 1912. There are 156 or 157 poems in Gitanjali (scholars have not yet decided how many poems are in the collection). Many of the poems share a common theme: love and spirituality. And each poem is based on medieval Indian lyrics, most of which are devotional in nature.
When it was published in both Bengali and English, Gitanjali became a hit. One modern reviewer, for instance, called Gitanjali a "comforting blanket." Rarely do authors translate their own works into another language. Tagore did just that. He translated the poems in Gitanjali into English before publishing his collection in 1912 with a London-based publisher. Interestingly, Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Gitanjali, marking the first time a non-European won that award. It was Gitanjali that launched Tagore's career and turned him into one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century.
