alexandra david néel my journey to lhasa

While temporarily settled in Paris, she found much inspiration in Hindu texts, and in 1891 she left the Sorbonne and set sail for Ceylon.

Daring by nature, and living her life with total freedom, she immersed herself in her twin passions of exploration and study.Īlways full of energy and ideas that were well ahead of her time, she wrote a feminist text in which she drew up a list of women’s rights and demanded a salary for housewives. Proud and fiercely individualistic, Alexandra followed her heart, on one journey after another. Her Bohemian spirit took her to Italy when she was 17, where she crossed Saint Gothard Pass on foot. In an attempt to tame her independent spirit, her parents finally placed her in a Calvinist convent, but when she was 15, she left the convent and headed for Great Britain. At age five, unruly, rebellious and already dreaming of traveling faraway lands, she fled the austere and harsh atmosphere that pervaded her childhood home. Her mother was a Catholic of Scandinavian origin who dreamed of having a son who would become a bishop. During her old age, Alexandra David- Néel, known to posterity as 'Our Lady of Tibet,' was considered one of the wisest 'free thinkers' of the 20th century.īorn Louise Eugénie Alexandrine Marie David, she was the only daughter of a French father of Huguenot ancestry. The first western woman to enter Lhasa, Tibet, she detailed her adventures in over 60 published works, including the triumphant 'Voyage d'une Parisienne à Lhassa' ('My Journey to Lhasa') and 'Women in Tibet,' 1934. French explorer, scholar, author and mystic, who became famous worldwide for her wanderings through central Asia.

Alexandra david néel my journey to lhasa