Acclaimed filmmaker Soumitra Ranade coming up with his first action-adventure novel for children, ‘Bhrigu and The Palace Of Mirror’

Having written-directed-produced and animated acclaimed children films like Jajantaram Mamantaram, Goopi Gawaiyaa Bagha Bajaiyaa and written-illustrated numerous books for children, the filmmaker Soumitra Ranade is now coming out with his first action adventure novel for children, ‘Bhrigu and The Palace Of Mirror’. Written and illustrated by Ranade and published by Hachette India,  the novel will be out on October 20 on Amazon, Kindle, Flipkart and bookstores across India.

Known for the official remake of cult classic, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai? starring Nandita Das and Manav Kaul which is streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime, Ranade is currently involved with the pre-production of an animated feature ‘Kabuliwala’ based on Rabindranath Tagore’s short story and an animation web series.

Excited about his debut as a novel writer for children, Soumitra says, “Although I have written many short stories for children and some of them have also been published, I always wanted to write something longer, something more substantial. A novel by its very form gives the writer that space to explore stories in depth – to delve into complexities, to develop relationships and so on.”

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He adds, “Writing, and then illustrating Bhrigu and the Palace of Mirrors brought me immense joy – like all the work that I do specifically for children always does. More than anything else, it is also to maintain my own sanity that I keep going back to children’s literature or films. That is free world – a world full of adventure and fantasy, of mystery and intrigue. That’s a world where one can eliminate the dark, the depressing and the miserable. It is a space of hope, love and compassion. There is a wide variety of children’s literature available in India – not just in English but also in many regional languages. But most of it is for young children. There is hardly anything for older children as a result of which they have to switch to the Harry Potters and other western writing. This in itself is fine, since children should be reading all that, but I think they should also be reading our stories. Bhrigu and the Palace of Mirrors is our way to address this gap. I am absolutely fascinated by the way children think and I am really looking forward to knowing what they think of my book.”