Bengali is the world's seventh most popular language in terms of the number who use it, but few have made the journey from the West to its cultural or spiritual interior. Its intellectual tradition is without equal in present-day India. Rabindranath Tagore, a true Renaissance man, is its greatest writer. Joe Winter's selection from Tagore's more than 40 books of poetry gives a wonderful sense of his variety in lyrics, songs and narratives. It complements and extends the work he began with translating "Song Offerings" (2000).
