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Ranjee G Shahani
‐
Writer and scholar
Other names
Ranjee Gurdassing Shahani
Ranjee Gurdasing Shahani
Hassan Ali
Place of birth
Location(s)
Flood Street,
London
SW3 5TB
United Kingdom 21 Cromwell Road
London
SW5 0SD
United Kingdom 80 Eaton Terrace, Sloane Square
London
SW1W 8TY
United Kingdom
Place of death
US
Date of time spent in Britain
mid 1920s–1936, 1941
About
Ranjee Shahani was born in 1904 and travelled to Britain some time in the mid-1920s. He had a DLitt from Paris and his first wife, Suzanne, was from Normandy, France. His second wife was Leticia V. Ramos from the Philippines.
In 1928 Shahani was writing a thesis on Shakespeare and asked advice from the writer Edward Garnett (father of David Garnett). His book Shakespeare through Eastern Eyes was published in 1932. Shahani became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1933, although this lapsed in 1934. In 1934 he wrote to Rabindranath Tagore that he wished to put together a selection of Thomas Sturge Moore's poems. In this, Shahani mentioned that he had talked to AE and William Rothenstein, and thus appeared to have various connections with the British literary establishment. Shahani was also a member of the India Society and spoke regularly at their meetings.
Shahani lived in France with his wife, daughter and mother-in-law from 1938 but then returned to England in 1941 due to the war. In the 1940s he wrote a series of articles called 'Some British I Admire' for the Asiatic Review, which included Laurence Binyon, Charles Lamb and E. M. Forster. He died in 1968, and at time of his death was Professor of English Literature at Seton Hall University, near New York.
Attended World Congress of Faiths, University College, London, July 1936. Other speakers at the Congress included S. Radhakrishnan, Yusuf Ali and Dr S. N. DasGupta
Lectured on 'The Influence of India on Western Culture' to India Society, presided by E. M. Forster, 4 December 1942
Clifford Bax, Launcelot Cranmer-Byng, Isobel Cripps and Richard Stafford Cripps, Benedetto Croce, Havelock Ellis, E. M. Forster, Edward Garnett, Eric Gill, John Galsworthy, Emile Legouis, Sylvain Levi, Thomas Sturge Moore, John Middleton Murry, Eric Partridge, S. Radhakrishnan, Romain Rolland, William Rothenstein, George Russell (AE), Rabindranath Tagore, Edward Thompson, Leonard Woolf, Francis Yeats-Brown, Francis Younghusband, Yusuf Ali.
Towards the Stars: Being an Appreciation of 'Phoenix and the Turtle', introduction by Edward Garnett and appreciation by André Maurois (1930)
Shakespeare through Eastern Eyes, introduction by J. Middleton Murry and appreciation by Emile Legouis (London: H. Joseph, 1932)
The Changeling (London: H. Joseph, 1933) [written under the pseudonym Hassan Ali]
The Coming of Karuna, with appreciation by Havelock Ellis (London: John Murray, 1934)
A New Pilgrim's Progress (London: World Congress of Faiths pamphlet, 1938)
Indian Pilgrimage (London: Michael Joseph, 1939)
A White Man in Search of God (London: Lester & Welbeck, 1943)
The Amazing English (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1948)
The Indian Way (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1951)
Mr Gandhi (New York, 1961)
Paper read to East India Association, 'Literary Interpreters of India: A Selective Study' (9 November 1943), Maynard Papers, Mss EUR F224/74, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Letter to William Rothenstein, Rothenstein Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard
EMF/18/453/3, King's College Archive, Cambridge
Correspondence with Edward Garnett, Garnett Collection, McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University
Letter to E. M. Forster, Mary Lago Archive, University of Missouri
Letters to Leonard Woolf, Leonard Woolf Archive, University of Sussex, Brighton
Letter to Rabindranath Tagore, Thomas Sturge Moore Correspondence, Visva Bharati Archives, Santiniketan
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
