Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control we have had to cancel this event. Tickets are refundable or can be transferred to any other festival events. Queries to boxoffice@southasianlitfest.com

How can poetry still be appreciated, even when written in a language not understood by the reader or listener?

2011 has seen a huge range of events around the world celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the revered Indian writer and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. A renowned polymath, his plays, novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, artwork and essays spoke to political and personal topics, and reshaped Bengali literature and music. He was a champion of East-and-West fusion and promoted a positive relationship between India and Britain, becoming the first non-Westerner to win the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature. Over the course of 80 years his prolific body of work amounted to 13 novels, an estimated 3,000 poems and over 2,000 songs.

Yet, for non-Bengali readers, is it possible to ever know the full measure of Tagore as a poet? How does this speak to a larger question about how poetry can still be appreciated, even when written in a language not understood by the reader or listener?

Join writer and academic Amit Chaudhuri, Guardian critic Ian Jack and bilingual writer, scholar and translator Ketaki Kushari Dyson in conversation with journalist and writer Anita Sethi, as they ask what has been lost – and gained – by Tagore in translation.

*Ticket includes wine