The story begins in a provincial German town called Neustadt,[a] home to 12-year-old schoolboy Emil Tischbein.
She sends Emil to Berlin to stay with his aunt and grandmother, bestowing on him 140 marks, a sum that has taken some months to save from her modest earnings.
On the train to Berlin, Emil shares his compartment with a mysterious man in a bowler hat who introduces himself as Herr Grundeis.
While Grundeis is eating his lunch in a restaurant, Emil meets a local boy called Gustav and tells him about his mission.
Grundeis tries to run away, but the detectives cling onto him until a police officer arrives, alerted by Emil's cousin Pony Hütchen.
It is partly based on Kästner's own experience of an idyllic holiday in the same location during the summer of 1914, cut short by the outbreak of World War I, and described poignantly in his autobiography, "When I was a Little Boy".
An early German version from 1931 featured a screenplay by the young Billy Wilder, with uncredited writing work by Emeric Pressburger and starring Rolf Wenkhaus as Emil.
[6] In December 2013, Carl Miller's adaptation opened on the main Olivier stage at London's National Theatre,[7] in a production directed by Bijan Sheibani and designed by Bunny Christie.