Tin Goyenda appeared at a time when the Bangladeshi
Bengali language book market offered few juvenile detective novels. In August 1985, the first Tin Goyenda book also named
Tin Goyenda caught the attention of thousands of thriller-loving young people. The success of the first book paved the way for the sequel
Konkal Dip (Skeleton Island). The third installment was
Rupali Makorsha (The Silver Spider). Later a new book was published every month.
Sources Most of the books were adaptations, mostly from western writers.
Authors The first 40-45 stories are from Robert Arthur, Jr's
The Three Investigators. These stories have David Christopher on them. Original
The Three Investigators (1964–1987) series published by
Random House (world's largest general-interest trade book publisher) in English had 43 books written by
Robert Arthur (10 books), William Arden whose original name was
Michael Collins (13 books), Nick West (2 books), M. V. Carey or Mary Virginia Carey (15 books) and Marc Brandel (3 books). Two movies in English were made by a German-South African production house. The first movie was
The Three Investigators and the Secret of Skeleton Island (2007) and then
The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle (2009). These two movie plots were slightly different than the books and the updated story included technologies like GPS and mobile phones. 11 books became the next series called 'The Three Investigators Crime Busters (1989–1990)'. Two of these books were written by original series writers, one by William Arden and another one by Marc Brandel. Other writers of the 'Crime Busters' series were Megan Stine and H. William Stine, G.H. Stone, William MacCay and Peter Lerangis. The stories which have Georgina Parker or Gina for short on them are from British author
Enid Blyton's
The Famous Five (1942–1963). She wrote 21 books. Television series were made in 1977 and again in 1995. The name Gina and eventually her full characteristics were based on the series. Other characters were transformed into Tin Goyenda by Hasan. The Famous Five series included two brothers and a sister whose cousin was 'Georgina Kirrin'. These characters were transformed into the characters of Kishore, Musa & Robin. Their cousin Georgina had the dog named 'Timmy' which was called 'Ruffian or Rafi' in the 'Tin Goenda' series. And though original 'The Three Investigators' series were American stories based around Rocky Beach, California, Los Angeles. The original 'Famous Five' stories were British stories. 'Goenda Raju' series was translated from or based on 'Famous Five' series. There the Characters were Raju, Opu, Babli & Misha, three siblings and one cousin. The Goenda Raju series stories were all converted into 'Tin Gonda' books. Therefore, all of the 'Famous Five' series books appear in the Bengali Tin Goenda series. In stories of Greenhills (a village) the three detectives are much younger and solve small cases (most of the time the police help them). In these stories Musa, Robin and Fariha (Musa's cousin) live in Greenhills. Kishore lives in Rocky Beach and has a dog named Titu. These stories are from
The Five Find-Outers, another juvenile series by Enid Blyton. The first story of
The Five Find-Outers,
The mystery of the Burnt Cottage was adopted into
Jhamela. Like the stories from
The Five Find-Outers, some other stories are based Greenhills. These stories have seven members on the team. These stories are adopted from Enid Blyton's fictional series
The Secret Seven. The difference between these stories and the originals are: in these stories Kishore lives in Greenhills and they form a detective group named
Lodhosh that prefers
Rohossho Vedi Dol in Bengali. The seven members are: Kishore, Musa, Robin, Misha (Kishore's cousin), Anita, Doly and Bob. These stories also feature Bably, a cousin of Musa and Nina (Bably's friend) who always interrupt in their case. Stories with Dick Curter (known as Uncle Dick) are adopted from Enid Blyton's juvenile series
The Adventure Series. Enid Blyton's other series named
The Faraway Tree was adopted into some
Tin Goyenda books.
Shamsuddin Nawab wrote some short stories based on this series' first novel
The Enchanted Wood, leaving some magical creatures from the original novel out from the adopted one. However, these books were highly criticized by Tin Goyenda fans.
Christopher Pike's
Spooksville series of 24 books were adopted into 24 Tin Goyenda horror stories. These stories include Roda and the stories are based in Death City, Roda's hometown. On the first story Rashed Pasha buys a house in the city and in the sequels Tin Goyenda often vacation there. The city is full of mystery and the paranormal. These stories feature another character named Tom, the friendly and knowledgeable homeless ex-mayor of Death City and a town witch. Christopher Pike's books are young adult fiction, horror and vampire stories as well. Pike wrote 75 books from 1985 to 2007. Hasan drew others stories from other juvenile English series. The most notable one is
The Hardy Boys. Romhorshok or Reza-Shuza book series' made the boys a little older than in the original The Three Investigators series and they participated in seemingly more dangerous missions. Romhorshok' series books were later converted into Tin Goyenda books, so Bengali Tin Goenda series has Hardy Boys stories in it. From 1927 to 2014, 489 books were published in the 'Hardy Boys' books series. Hasan also adapted Tipu Kibria's Kishore Horror series, but this ended due to less popularity. After writing for more than a decade, Hasan departed from Sheba Prokashoni and Shamsuddin Nawab took up the writing. In August 2015, on the occasion of Tin Goyenda's 30 year anniversary, it was revealed in Kishor Alo (a monthly youngsters' magazine), that Shamsuddin Nawab is actually Qazi Shahnur Hossain; who is
Qazi Anwar Hussain's son. ==References==