Book excerpt: Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951) best known outside Bengal for Rajkahini, the valorous tales from Rajasthan, was a versatile writer who redefined the idea of children’s literature. While keeping the core stories intact from the sources in mythology, history and legend, Abanindra added verve by embedding subtle lessons for the young generations. Amita Ray’s translation of Khirer Putul in 2018 found an appreciative audience and opened up the corpus of Abaninindranath to a large English knowing readership. Her present book which translates Shakuntala(1895), Abanindranath’s maiden novella, and Nalak (1916) written much later, are a welcome expansion to the library. Abanindranath Tagore, an innovator like many others in that remarkable family, experiments with form through the twin devices of image and text. In this foreword, I try to relate the stories, and Amita Ray’s translations, to contemporary themes because only then is the reader’s imagination triggered into an awareness of the continuities of a literary heritage.