Tintin Forums

Tintin existed in India in English and Bengali.

Since 2010, are the Adventures of Tintin also available in Hindi, the language most spoken in India. The Hindi version was published by OM Books International India in New Delhi.

Herge sent Tintin and Snowy 3 times to India:
namely in the albums The Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Blue Lotus and Tintin in Tibet.

Jan Aarnout Boer, chairman of the Dutch "Herge Society" (Herge Genootschap) consulted recently the archives of Casterman Tournai. To his surprise, he found letters that proved that some adventures of Tintin were translated in Hindi in the 60's of last century. At least three stories were published in Hindi in the Catholic weekly newspaper Sanjivan. The newspaper had a circulation of only 7,000 copies. It was the publisher, an American Jesuit priest from Chicago who stayed in India, Father John Barret, who in 1963 wrote a letter to Herge asking him to be so kind to deliver the necessary material, in black/white, so that they could weekly publish episodes of the adventures of Tintin in Hindi in their newspaper. He also added immediately that they had no money to pay any duties.

When Herge read the letter, he was so impressed that he gave Pierre Servais, the copyright manager responsible for Casterman, the permission to send the stories to India for free.

Does someone has this Catholic weekly newspaper Sanjivan from the sixties with a Tintin story?

John Barrett (S.J.)is the author of the book: Born for India: An American Jesuit's Life in India - Vaigarai Pub. House, 2000