Travel classic -- Vie et voyages, 1996

Ahead-of-her-time, fearless and remarkable Alexandra David-N&eacuteel has been on my mind and bookshelf for the better part of last year. She wrote thirty-odd books in 101-years (1868-1969) &mdash on philosophy, the occult, Tantric &lsquoLamaism&rsquo, the landscape of the Himalaya and &lsquoForbidden&rsquo Tibet &mdash and most of her oeuvre may be classified as travel writing, so it was ripe picking. David-N&eacuteel&rsquos work emerged not out of academia and collated bookish knowledge, but out of personal journeys made through her adult life. Jo&eumllle D&eacutesiré-Marchand&rsquos biography of David-N&eacuteel is the rarest of travelogues the sort that begins well before the traveller has shut the doors of her house, and is written only at the very end of a robustly-lived life. For David-N&eacuteel&rsquos life was a series of ambitious journeys punctuated by a few reluctant pit stops during which she wrote ceaselessly, while planning her next voyage. With unmatched tenacity, luck, the willingness to break rules and (in no small measure) the ability to beguile and convince men who could be enablers, David-N&eacuteel traversed over and gained access to spaces that few people &mdash especially white folks or women &mdash had ever reached. Considering just how violently these spaces would be marked by time and politics, chronicles such as David-N&eacuteel&rsquos are the last authentic, personal record that remains.

Amruta Patil is a writer and a painter whose books include the graphic novels Kari and Adi Parva