Paddington Bear's immigration status questioned in new book
Last Updated: Sunday, December 9, 2007 | 11:44 AM ET
CBC News
British writer Michael Bond has revealed that a book marking the 50th anniversary of Paddington Bear will centre on the arrest and interrogation of the marmalade-loving fictional character.
The 83-year-old author told BBC News that Paddington, from Darkest Peru, will be questioned about his immigration status in Paddington Here and Now, to be published in June 2008.
"Although the world has changed considerably over the past 30 years, he remains exactly the same — eternally optimistic and ever open to what life has to offer," said Bond.
It will be the first book about the bear to be published since Paddington Takes the Test hit the shelves in 1979.
In Paddington Here and Now, the bear, who arrived in England as a stowaway, is interviewed about his right to stay in the country.
He has no papers to prove his identity as his Aunt Lucy arranged for him to hide on a ship's lifeboat from Peru when she went to live in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima.
He arrives in London's Paddington train station wearing a duffle coat, hat, boots and clutching a suitcase containing an empty jar of marmalade.
The Brown family, who name him after the station, decide to take him in, unaware of the misadventures they will undergo.
Bond, a former BBC cameraman, based the character on a teddy bear he spotted in a store near Paddington Station on Christmas Eve 1956, which he bought as a gift for his wife. It inspired him to write a story and in 10 days, he came up with A Bear Called Paddington.
The books have since been translated into 30 languages. Bond quit his BBC job in 1965 to devote himself to writing.
David Heyman, the producer of the Harry Potter films, announced in September he would bring the bear to screen, combining live action and computer-generated images.
The screenplay will be based on various episodes as told through Bond's 11 previous books, published between 1958 and 1979.
