Martin Kämpchen was born in 1948 in Boppard (Germany). He studied a year each in the USA and in Paris; his Ph.D. in German Literatuire is from Vienna. He taught German at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata. Returning to University, he did an M.A. in Madras (Chennai) and a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion from Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. He has translated the Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita and Tagore’s poetry from Bengali to German. He has authored the only German Tagore biography and written several books on Tagore’s relationship with Germany in English and German.

Kämpchen is involved in the development work of two tribal villages around Santiniketan since 25 years. He has received, among others, the Rabindra Puruskar of the West Bengal government, the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) of the German government, and the Merck Tagore Award of the Merck Company and the Goethe Institut India.

Preface;

Bringing in the Harvest;

The Genius of the Poet Tagore; 

Globetrotting with Rabindranath;

Gitanjali Reborn, On Hundred Years later: The Story of a Discovery;

Painting the Dust and the Sunlight: Rabindranath Tagore and the two Gitanjalis;  

Transplanting the Songs of Tagore;  Master of Empathy: Probing the Genius of Tagore;

On the Seashore of a Great Poem; 

What I have Learnt from Tagore;

The Possibilities and the Problems of Tagore Translation;

Rabindranath, Maker of Paths;

The Balance of Complexity and Simplicity;

Tagore before and after 1912; Tagore’s Sense of Rhythm;

Tagore and Christianity;

The Wakening of Shiva: Rabindranath Tagore’s Spanish Incarnation;

The Teacher of Poetry and Life; Bengal’s Gifts to the World;

Rabindranath Tagore: The Next Fifty Years;

Photo Essay by Martin Kämpchen