Tagore's poetry continues to be inspirational

Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1913 became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for literature. His work struck a particular chord in China, notably his most famous collection of poems, Gitanjali (Song Offerings). Ever since Chen Duxiu, one of the founders of the Communist Party of China, published four poems from the Gitanjali in the journal Xin Qing Nian (New Youth), in 1915, many others have translated the collection.

They include Zhu Wenxin (penname Wen Zhong); Zheng Zhenduo, first director of National Cultural and Heritage Administration of New China; Sun Jiajin (penname Wu Yan); Lin Zhihao; Wang Li; and Xie Wanying (penname Xie Bingxin or just Bing Xin). Another translation was published last November, by Xiao Xingzheng, a bilingual poet of English and Chinese who teaches English at Xiamen University in Fujian province.

Why another translation? "I feel the translation by Bing Xin didn't convey India's spiritualism." When Xiao first read the Gitanjali, aged 20, he believed they were love poems. "Not just me, many Chinese people thought the same," Xiao says. "Much later, I realized his Song Offerings were dedicated to the ultimate source of creation, call it god, Dao, Nirvana or Brahma. China has no devotional poetry dedicated to a god or gods and even Bing made no mention of that in the preface to her translation in 1981. That made it very difficult for people here to understand Gitanjali."