Alexandra David-Néel, the French-Belgian adventurer who made Asia her own

Of course, the unsubtle indication is that women’s writing is another inferior genre not complex enough to be deemed just writing. Women’s prose writing is another genre, women’s poetry yet another, and women’s travel writing is not something that deserves any attention as writing at all. It can, at best, be an object of curiosity, if that. The English translation of Alexandra David-Néel’s account of her journey into Lhasa, published by Harper Perennial, attaches a phrase to the title itself: My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City (2005) when the original title in French was simply Souvenirs of a Parisian in Tibet.

Studying Sanskrit in Madras

The banal attempt at sensationalising the book works at diminishing the significance of the writing and stands rather in contrast to the account itself, about which the New York Review of Books wrote: “[David-Néel’s] descriptions of the landscape are fervent and her understanding of the Tibetans admirably unsentimental. Her Tibet is not at all the philosophers’ kingdom of Lost Horizon; it is a fierce, filthy, frequently dangerous place, where she had to exercise the utmost ingenuity to survive.”

Souvenirs of a Parisian in Tibet is a travel account of Tibet in the early 20th century, when it was forbidden to foreigners, written by the famous French-Belgian woman adventurer who led an exceedingly interesting and unusual life. David-Néel, who is described variously as explorer, spiritualist, writer, opera singer, and anarchist, was born on October 24, 1868, in France to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother. Her mother wanted her to receive a Catholic education while her father secretly had her baptized in the Protestant faith, allowing her a greater degree of freedom as she was no longer required to attend daily mass or learn scriptures.

In 1873, the Davids moved to Belgium where they settled in the town of Ixelles. She also came in contact with people like Élisée Reclus, the French geographer, writer and anarchist, who introduced her to the ideas of thinkers like Max Stirner, a German philosopher, and Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian revolutionary. She also eventually became a contributor to La Fronde, the first newspaper in France to be entirely designed and run by women and founded by Marguerite Durand, a French journalist and suffragette. By the age of 18, David-Néel was studying in Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society and in her free time, she often visited the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts in Paris owing to her growing interest in Asia and Asiatic religions.

According to Raymond Brodeur, she converted to Buddhism at the age of 21. David-Néel took Sanskrit and Eastern philosophy classes at the Collège de France and at the Ecole pratique des hautes Etudes. At age 23, she sailed to India for the first time, thanks to a small inheritance from her godmother, and stayed at a Theosophy Center near Chennai, then Madras, to continue her studies in Sanskrit. Upon her return, she found that her parents were no longer able to support her and she had to find a way to earn a living. She enrolled herself at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and later accepted the position of first singer at the Hanoi Opera House in Vietnam between 1895-1896 and 1896–1897 under the name Alexandra Myrial. It was there that she met Philippe Néel, chief engineer of the Tunisian railways and her future husband. Her marriage, much like her life, proved to be rather unusual, with Philippe Neel sponsoring her third trip to India, resulting in 14 years of separation.

Her mad love affair with Asia

David-Néel is perhaps best known for her extensive travels in Asia, particularly her journey to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924; she was one of the first Westerners to enter the holy city, which had forbidden entry to foreigners at that time. To circumvent the prohibition, David-Néel disguised herself as a beggar and monk, wearing loose robes and carrying a discreet backpack with a compass, pistol, and some money for possible bribes and ransoms. She was travelling with the young lama Aphur Yongden, her longtime companion whom she later adopted as her son.

They finally reached Lhasa and disappeared in a crowd of pilgrims arriving to celebrate the Monlam Prayer Festival. They stayed in Lhasa for two months, when they were also able to visit the surrounding monasteries of Drepung, Sera, Ganden, and Samye. After two months of travels, exhausted and without money, she managed to enter India through Sikkim from where she went to Calcutta; there, she had herself photographed in Tibetan clothes in a studio.

Souvenirs of a Parisian in Tibet is the account of these incredible travels she undertook in Tibet and it is only this year, just last month, that its unedited original French manuscript, which includes previously edited out words and phrases, has been published by Editions PLON in their iconic Terre Humaine collection under its current director Dr Philippe Charlier, who has published many incredible travel accounts and anthropological texts respecting the wishes of the collection’s founder Jean Malaurie.

The inclusion of brilliant women writers like that of David-Néel in the collection only enhances the long standing reputation of Terre Humaine, by making the earth not just of men but also of women. The text of David-Néel is a testament to that, which is by no means the last recounting of her travels as she wrote many books in the following years and kept returning to Asia, including China and Tibet, until the age of 100. She breathed her last in 1969, when her ashes were transported to Varanasi in accordance with her wishes and immersed into the holy Ganges, along with the ashes of Yongden, her longtime companion and adopted son who had died a few years earlier in France.

Alexandra David-Néel is part of the largely overlooked legacy of women’s travel writing that demands thorough examination and analyses in the context of imperialism, colonialism, and women’s rights and empowerment in the 20th century. David-Néel relationship with Asia remains complex, being equal parts fascinating and discomforting and her own recounting of this long connection reads like a history of a mad love affair. Her writing is a coup d’œil into an inaccessible world accessed by a woman and her own account of her travels is as much about Tibet as it is about being a traveller. No extra adjectives are needed.