Two Sisters

Two Sisters (Dui Bon, 1933) was first published in 1943 (translated ky Krishna Kripalani) and is one of Tagore’s last three novels. It is about the eternal conflict that arises when a man does not find a mother figure and a sweetheart in the same person. He needs the former and desires the latter, Man draws strength from the mother in a woman and inspiration from the beloved in her. When the two do not meet in the same individual, his heart is torn asunder, The poignancy and the tender irony of its theme makes Two Sisters one of the finest Tagore novels.

One of India’s most cherished renaissance figures, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) put us on the literary , map of the world when his Gitanjali was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. A poet’s poet, he is a maker of not only modern Indian literature but also the modern Indian mind. Myriad-minded, he was a poet, short story writer, novelist, dramatist, essayist, painter and composer of songs. Gandhi called him the ‘Great Sentinel’. His world-wide acclaim as a social, political, religious and aesthetic thinker, innovator in education and a champion of the ‘One World’ idea makes him a living presence.