Pather Panchali (novel)

Pather Panchali

Author	Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Original title	পথের পাঁচালী
Country	India
Language	Bengali
Series	Bichitra
Genre	Bildungsroman, tragedy, family drama
Publisher	Ranjan Prakashalay, BY 1336,
Publication date	BY 1336, CE 1929
Followed by	Aparajito

Pather Panchali (Bengali: পথের পাঁচালী, Pôther Pãchali, translated as Song of the Road) is a novel written by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and was later adapted into a film of the same name by Satyajit Ray. Pather Panchali deals with the life of the Roy family, both in their ancestral village in rural Bengal and later when they move to Varanasi in search of a better life, as well as the anguish and loss they face during their travels.

It first appeared as a serial in a Calcutta periodical in 1928 and was published as a book the next year; it was the first published novel written by the author. It was followed in 1932 by a sequel Aparajito, which was later also adapted into a film of the same name by Satyajit Ray.

Translations

Pather Panchali was translated first to Telugu under the same name by Maddipatla Suri in 1960 and published. It was translated to Sinhalese under the name Mawathe Geethaya (Sinhala) by Chintha Lakshmi Sinhaarachchi which was published in 1986. This was immensely popular in Sri Lanka and was followed by the translations of the other two books of the Apu trilogy by the same translator.

'Pather Panchali' was translated into Malayalam under the name, 'Pather Panchali - Paathayuday Sangeetham' by Mr. M. K. N. Potty, which was first published in April 2009 by Green Books Pvt Ltd., Trichur, Kerala.

An English translation by T.W. Clark and Tarapada Mukherji was published in 1968 by Indiana University Press as part of the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, and an abridged translation by K. Roy and Margaret Chatterjee followed in 1976.

An adaptation for radio by Tanika Gupta was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 24 February & 3 March 2013 as a "Classic Serial".