[Photograph of unidentified individuals standing in front of the Rabindranath Tagore bust outside the Asian Centre in Vancouver

Photograph of unidentified individuals standing in front of the Rabindranath Tagore bust, located outside the Asian Centre in Vancouver, B.C.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. He was a Bengali poet, novelist, playwright, painter, and educator. The bust was a gift from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Government of India, and it was erected in September 2002.

The Asian Centre is home to the Asian studies department and the Asian Library, and is located at the University of British Columbia. Established in 1915, the University of British Columbia consists of two campuses: one is situated within the ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people, also known as Vancouver, B.C., and the other is on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples, also known as Kelowna, B.C. As of 2025, UBC is ranked second and third in Canada, and 38th, 41st, and 53rd in the world.