Sarojini Naidu was a poet, political activist and leading figure in women’s suffrage. Born in Hyderabad in 1879, Naidu travelled to England in 1895 on a scholarship to study at King's College London and Girton College, Cambridge. During her time in London, Naidu encountered the suffrage movement and became a lifelong campaigner and activist for women’s rights. She was also a proficient poet, whose writing caught the attention of authors Edmund Gosse, Arthur Symons and W.B. Yeats. One of the earliest publications of her poetry is in the short-lived Savoy magazine, edited by Symons, with the poem ‘Eastern Dancers’ (1896). The composition would later appear in her debut collection, The Golden Threshold (1905), which launched her as a talented poet and led to many appearances and readings of her work in London. She published two more collections, The Bird of Time (1912) and The Broken Wing (1917), and in 1914 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Naidu returned to India due to ill-health, but nonetheless embarked on a political career and became a prominent figure in the anti-colonial movement in India, eventually becoming the first woman president of the Indian National Congress. Naidu maintained correspondence with poets in Britain, returning to give readings as well as attend political rallies, and died in office in 1949. Praised for her imagery and lyrical quality, she is remembered as the ‘Nightingale of India’.
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