Novel
The Burmese Box
পদি পিসির বর্মি বাক্স
Leela Majumdar · 1950
Synopsis
Khoka, a schoolboy, sets off to his uncle's and learns on the way the legend of his great-aunt Padi Pishi, a formidable widow. Years ago, attacked by brigands on her way to see her uncle Khuro, a bandit who passed himself off as a saint, she had unmasked him and wrested from him, in exchange for her silence, a precious Burmese box. She told no one, except her good-for-nothing son Goja, where she had hidden it. The whole family has been looking for it ever since, a private detective gets involved, and Khoka sets out in his turn.
Context
Leela Majumdar published her first story in Sandesh in 1922, illustrated by her own hand, and it was from the 1950s onwards that her great classics for children came, funny, peopled with eccentric uncles and cunning grandmothers. Satyajit Ray thought of making a film from it; Arundhati Devi made it in 1972, with Chhaya Devi as Padi Pishi and songs by Nazrul, and it remains her best-known film.
Who it is for
A children's novel, funny and full of false trails, with no French translation, which an adult reads with just as much pleasure.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's masterpiece and as a classic of Bengali books written for children.
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