海伦·班尼曼

海伦·班尼曼（英语：Helen Bannerman，1862年—1946年），英国作家，最著名的作品是《小黑人桑波》（Little Black Sambo）。

生平

海伦·班尼曼生于英国爱丁堡。1899到1918年间，她随担任军医的丈夫在殖民地印度居住了一段时间，两名女儿则仍留在苏格兰就学。那段期间里，班尼曼在写给女儿的家书中，经常将她对印度的印象编成小故事。

作品

《小黑人桑波》, 1899

Story of Little Black Mingo, 1901

Story of Little Black Quibba, 1902

Little Degchie-Head: An Awful Warning to Bad Babas, 1903

Little Kettle-Head, 1904

Pat and the Spider, 1905

The Teasing Monkey, 1907

Little Black Quasha, 1908

Story of Little Black Bobtail, 1909

Sambo and the Twins, 1936

Little White Squibba, 1965

Helen Brodie Cowan Bannerman (née Watson; 25 February 1862 – 13 October 1946) was a Scottish children's writer. She is best known for her first book, Little Black Sambo (1899).

Life

Bannerman was born at 35 Royal Terrace, Edinburgh. She was the eldest daughter and fourth child of seven children of Robert Boog Watson (1823–1910), minister of the Free Church of Scotland and malacologist, and his wife Janet (1831–1912), daughter of Helen Brodie and the papermaker and philanthropist Alexander Cowan. Between the ages of 2-12, she lived in Madeira, where her father was minister at the Scottish church. When the family returned, they spent much time with their maternal aunt, Mrs Cowan, at 35 Royal Terrace on Calton Hill.

Because women were not admitted into Scottish universities at the time, she sat external examinations set by the University of St. Andrews, attaining the qualification of Lady Literate in Arts (LLA) in 1887. She then married Dr William Burney Bannerman, a physician and an officer in the Indian Medical Service (IMS), in 1889.

The couple moved to India in 1889, taking up residence in Madras (modern-day Chennai), capital of the state of Tamil Nadu on the southeastern seacoast, populated mostly by the Tamil ethnic group. During their thirty years in India, they had four children: daughters Janet (b. 1893) and Day (b. 1896), and sons James "Pat" Patrick (b. 1900) and Robert (b. 1902).

Bannerman and her husband returned to Edinburgh in 1918; he died in 1924. She died at home on 13 October 1946, of cerebral thrombosis and a fractured femur; her body was cremated. She is buried with her husband in Grange Cemetery in south Edinburgh.

Bannerman was the grandmother of the physicist Tom Kibble, who discovered the Higgs–Kibble mechanism and the Higgs boson.

Works

The illustrations and settings of Bannerman's books are all about Indians and their culture. Little Black Sambo has ghee, tigers, and a bazaar, The Story of Little Black Mingo has jungle, a mugger crocodile, a dhobi, and a mongoose, Little Black Quasha has a bazaar and tigers, and The Story of Little Black Quibba has mangoes and elephants.

The Story of Little Black Sambo, 1899

Story of Little Black Mingo, 1901

The Story of Little Black Quibba, 1902

Little Degchie-Head: An Awful Warning to Bad Babas, 1903

Little Kettle-Head, 1904

Pat and the Spider, 1905

The Story of the Teasing Monkey, 1907

Little Black Quasha, 1908

Story of Little Black Bobtail, 1909

Sambo and the Twins, 1936

The Story of Little White Squibba, 1966 Finished by her daughter