''The Road to Agra'' ( no, Veien til Agra) is a
children's novel
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
written by
Aimée Sommerfelt and published in
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
in
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
. It is her most famous work and has been translated into 17 other languages.
[Finnish 1960, English, German, Dutch and Romanian 1961, Swedish 1962, French and Portuguese 1963, Hungarian, Serbian and Slovak 1964, Italian 1965, Danish, Icelandic, Japanese and Slovenian 1966, Macedonian 1967]
Set in India, the book tells the story of 13-year-old Lalu and his 7-year-old sister Maya, who are on their way from
Allahabad
Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
to
Agra
Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...
to seek help from doctors for Maya's grave
eye disease
This is a partial list of human eye diseases and disorders.
The World Health Organization publishes a classification of known diseases and injuries, the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, or ICD-10. ...
, which is causing her to become
blind. The journey to Agra is dusty, hot and exhausting, and at night the children are threatened by snakes and jackals. But the children keep their spirits up, because they have heard that the disease can be cured at the hospital in Agra. Along the way, they meet both good and bad people, and get an elephant ride. Ultimately, they reach their destination, and Maya is cured by European doctors.
The book was followed by a 1962 sequel, ''
The White Bungalow'', published in English in 1963.
Bibliography
*
Aimée Sommerfelt. ''The Road to Agra''. New York, Criterion Books, 1961. Translated from Norwegian to English by Evelyn Ramsden.
Footnotes
1959 children's books
Children's novels
20th-century Norwegian novels
Novels set in India
Norwegian children's literature
1959 novels
Children's books set in India
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