USC-UCLA
Joint East Asian Studies Center
Alexandra David-Neel
Web Resources:
A short biography of David-Neel (French and English)
A selection from David-Neel's 1929 book Magic and Mystery in Tibet
French language bibliography of David-Neel's writings on Tibet
Hungarian language page (with photos) on David-Neel
A recent biography of David-Neel:
Barbara Foster and Michael Foster, The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel: A Biography of the Explorer of Tibet and Its Forbidden Practices, Overlook Press, 1998.
From Kirkus Reviews , April 1, 1998
The authors' affection for their subject is warmly communicated in this biography of
David-Neel (18681969), the French Tibetophile who was the first European woman to explore
the once forbidden (to foreigners) city of Lhasa. The Fosters already have one biography
of David-Neel to their credit (Forbidden Journey, 1987). In their preface to this book,
they present it as an entirely revised edition of the earlier one, incorporating
information gleaned from additional source materials and interviews. The authors'
characterization of their subject's many writings``witty and entertaining''applies as well
to their own. The biography opens as a movie might, on David-Neel's surreptitious
departure from Lhasa in May 1924, after having entered illegally following a perilous
journey. Succeeding chapters flash back to her childhood, marriage, and first journeys
east, culminating in the great trek by foot to Lhasa. The final chapters on the end of her
life, back in France, also review her major writings, which include autobiography, novels,
translations of Tibetan texts, and studies of Buddhism. The many epithets used throughout
the book, in lieu of the heroine's namethe seeker, adventurer, pilgrim, scholar,
orientalist, iconoclastgive some feel for the scope of her character and work. The authors
present her as a Tantric mystic who scorned mystification; an ascetic who laid carpets in
her Tibetan cave-dwelling; a radical democrat who, a colonialist still, condescended to
her adopted Sikkimese son: in short, as the union of opposites that many deeply religious
people are. The authors' principal concern is that David-Neel be remembered for her part
in preserving Tibet's religious legacyespecially now that it is under attackthrough the
texts she translated and saved for the West, including Tibetan versions of works no longer
available in the original Sanskrit from the early Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna. From the
joint talents of the authors (a librarian and a novelist) comes a winsome biography that
takes its subject more seriously than itself. (26 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright
©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.