The Post Office (play)
Encyclopedia
The Post Office is a 1912 play by Rabindranath Tagore
. It concerns Amal, a child confined to his adopted uncle's home by an incurable disease. W. Andrew Robinson
and Krishna Dutta note that the play "continues to occupy a special place in [Tagore's] reputation, both within Bengal and in the wider world." It was written in four days.
Amal stands in Madhav's courtyard and talks to passers-by, and asks in particular about the places they go. The construction of a new post office
nearby prompts the imaginative Amal to fantasize about receiving a letter from the King or being his postman. The village headman mocks Amal, and pretends the illiterate child has received a letter from the king promising that his royal physician will come to attend him. The physician really does come, with a herald to announce the imminent arrival of the king; Amal, however, falls asleep (or dies) as Sudha comes to bring him flowers.
W.B. Yeats was the first person to produce an English-language version of the play; he also wrote a preface to it. Juan Ramón Jiménez
translated it into Spanish; it was translated into French by André Gide
and read on the radio the night before Paris fell to the Nazis. A Polish version was performed under the supervision of Janusz Korczak
in the Warsaw ghetto.
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
. It concerns Amal, a child confined to his adopted uncle's home by an incurable disease. W. Andrew Robinson
W. Andrew Robinson
W. Andrew Robinson is a British author and former newspaper editor.Andrew Robinson was educated at the Dragon School, Eton College where he was a King's Scholar, University College, Oxford where he read Chemistry and finally the School of Oriental and African Studies in London...
and Krishna Dutta note that the play "continues to occupy a special place in [Tagore's] reputation, both within Bengal and in the wider world." It was written in four days.
Amal stands in Madhav's courtyard and talks to passers-by, and asks in particular about the places they go. The construction of a new post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
nearby prompts the imaginative Amal to fantasize about receiving a letter from the King or being his postman. The village headman mocks Amal, and pretends the illiterate child has received a letter from the king promising that his royal physician will come to attend him. The physician really does come, with a herald to announce the imminent arrival of the king; Amal, however, falls asleep (or dies) as Sudha comes to bring him flowers.
W.B. Yeats was the first person to produce an English-language version of the play; he also wrote a preface to it. Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French concept of "pure poetry."-Biography:Jiménez was born in Moguer, near Huelva, in...
translated it into Spanish; it was translated into French by André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
and read on the radio the night before Paris fell to the Nazis. A Polish version was performed under the supervision of Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
in the Warsaw ghetto.