Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. He was the first non-European to win the prize. Tagore was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of over 30 books of poems, including Gitanjali, he became one of the most influential figures in Bengali literature and culture. His compositions were adopted into film and stage productions, and he became a leading figure in the Indian independence movement.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy to an author who in the previous year “shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. The prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine.