''The Post Office'' (Bengali: ''Dak Ghar'') is a 1912 play by

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

. It concerns Amal, a child confined to his adoptive 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 A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

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, 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. It was performed in English for the first time in 1913 by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, directed by W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory; this production transferred to the Court Theatre, London, later the same year. The Bengali original was staged at Tagore's Jorasanko theatre in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

in 1917. It had a successful run in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

with 105 performances and its themes of liberation from captivity and zest for life resonated in its performances in concentration camps where it was staged during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Juan Ramón Jiménez Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (; 23 December 1881 – 29 May 1958) was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high ...

translated it into Spanish; it was translated into French by

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) 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 ...

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, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942), was a Polish Jewish educator, children's author and pedagogue known as ''Pan Doktor'' ("Mr. Doctor") or ''Stary Doktor'' ("Old Doctor"). After spending ...

in the

Warsaw ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

References

External links

Text of ''The Post Office''
en.wikisource.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Post Office, The 1912 plays Bengali-language plays Plays by Rabindranath Tagore Indian plays adapted into films

See also

References

External links