Exhibition

Art et nomades sur les Routes de la Soie

Sur les traces d'Ella Maillart

15 July - 15 August 2023

Tour d'Anniviers, 3961 Vissoie, Valais

Wednesday to Sunday, 2 pm - 6 pm, and on appointment

Information: lohalff@gmail.com

Ella Maillart Skiing Race in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan

On February 14, 2023, the Swiss NGO Pamir's Bridges and its Kyrgyz partners organized the 6th edition of their "Ella Maillart Race" at the Ski Base in Karakol in Kyrgyzstan's Celestial Mountains. 98 young people from Karakol, Bishkek, Orlovka and Naryn participated in the event, a giant slalom of 40 gates. Almost half of the participants were girls.

Recent publications

Ella Maillart - Revue-Livre Sept No.41, spring 2023, 194 p. In French.

Quarterly publication, the first mook (contraction of magazine and book) in Switzerland, dedicated to Ella Maillart on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of her birth. The three authors treat different aspects of her career: Partir pour se déconstruire by Gérard A. Jaeger evokes her years of youth and navigation; Sur les traces d’Ella Maillart by Olivier Weber recounts her travels in Russian Turkestan; Seul le voyage intérieur est réel by historian Fanny Guex speaks of Ella Maillart's stay with masters of wisdom in South India. The publication is completed by an interview with Catherine Domain, bookseller in Paris, as well as Dans les yeux d’Ella Maillart, a selection of 58 color photographs published for the first time. Paper version in kiosks and bookstores, also available in digital or audio format.

Ti-Puss - Drei Jahre in Indien mit meiner Katze

Lenos Verlag, Basel, 2023 (Deutsche Erstausgabe: Albert Müller Verlag, Rüschlikon / Zürich, 1954). Die Genfer Abenteurerin Ella Maillart verbrachte in den 1940er Jahren eine längere Zeit auf dem indischen Subkontinent, um Menschen, deren Kultur und Spiritualität zu entdecken - und auch sich selbst. Stets an ihrer Seite: Ti-Puss, ein halbwildes, ungestümes und sehr selbständiges Kätzchen, das in ihrer Pflege heranwächst und der Autorin zur Freundin und Gefährtin wird. Reisebericht und Tagebuch einer besonderen Beziehung: Ella Maillarts persönlichstes Buch.

Ella Maillart — Ma Philosophie du voyage

Petite Bibliothèque Payot, Editions Payot & Rivages, 253 p., Paris, 2022. In French.

A collection of 17 texts written by Ella Maillart during her travels in Asia. Attentive, wherever she was, to the condition of women, Ella Maillart showed herself at every moment to be of incredible energy and curiosity, attracted like a magnet by forbidden lands, zigzagging journeys and chance encounters, also practicing the art of slowness to assimilate the experience, searching for the essential, which alone is lasting.

Ella Maillart — Toerkestan Solo - Een vrouw uo weg naar Samarkand, 1932

Editions Querido Fosfor, 324 p., Amsterdam, 2022. In Dutch.

In 1932, Ella Maillart travels through Soviet Turkestan, which the revolutionaries are trying to westernize. She crosses the Kirghiz country to the Tien Shan, the Celestial Mountains, on horseback. Without a permit, avoiding dangerous crossing points, she investigates Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara and descends the Amu Darya. On a camel, in the icy wind, she crosses the Red Sands desert, east of the Aral Sea...

Ella Maillart — Cette réalité que j'ai pourchassée

Editions Zoé, 256 p., Genève, 2021 (new pocket book). In French.

In this edition, the letters to her parents are supplemented by articles, written for various newspapers and magazines, which illustrate her activities: sailing on Lake Geneva, archaeological excavations in Crete, sports training and peregrinations in the mountains of the USSR, an account of a conflict on the India-Afghanistan border in 1937. And by a never published text noted confidential in her archives: a visit to Winston Churchill in 1936. The book is illustrated with black and white photographs.

Ella Maillart — The Cruel Way

John Murray Publishers, London, 320 p., 2021. Introduction by Fiona Mozley. In English.

Ella Maillart goes to Asia once again, and she is not alone. Christina, whose real name is Annemarie Schwarzenbach, a friend of Klaus and Erika Mann, accompanies her. Her gifts are exceptional, but she is on drugs. Two courageous women, both of them unbelievably original, are in a difficult situation, threats are hanging over them. An 18-horsepower Ford takes the two experienced travelers from Geneva to Afghanistan, via Istanbul, Trebizond, Tehran, Herat...

Ella Maillart — Regards sur Chandolin

Includes Ella Maillart ou la vie immédiate by Nicolas Bouvier. In French. Preface by Pierre-François Mettan, afterword by Jérôme Meizoz. Editions Zoé, 168 p., Genève, 2021.

Back in Europe after several years in India, Ella Maillart discovered Chandolin, perched at 2000 meters in the Swiss Alps. Eager to settle down after years of travel, she was fascinated by this village, where she spent from now on 6 months a year. Over the decades, she photographed its inhabitants, and the religious and community life marked by traditions. Her texts recount the construction of the road that connects Chandolin to the valley since 1959, deplore the invasion of tourists, a threat to the Alpine balance, and magnify the sublime and dangerous mountain.

Livres pour enfants:

Kini - Le Monde à bras le corps — Une biographie d'Ella Maillart

Ingrid Thobois et Géraldine Alibeu. Editions À pas de loups, 2019, 60 pages. In French.

Un fabuleux destin - Ella Maillart

d'Olivier May. Editions Anzou (Suisse), 2021, 32 pages. In French.

I

n 2021 and 2022, new editions of five books by Ella Maillart have been published by EDT Torino: Italian translations of Cruises and Caravans, The Cruel Way, 'Ti-Puss, Turkestan Solo, Forbidden Journey.

Ella Maillart aux Jeux Olympiques de Paris, 1924

For readers who are particularly interested in Ella Maillart as a navigator, we can propose this 38-page booklet, size 21 x 27 cm. Produced by the Association Les amis d'Ella Maillart, it contains the reproduction of an album of photographs and texts collected by Ella Maillart after she participated in the Games of the 8th Olympiad in Paris. The original album is part of the Ella Maillart photographic collection at Photo Elysée, Lausanne. Information and order at info@ellamaillat.ch. In French.

Ella Maillart - Dans la tourmente du XXe siècle

by Bridget Dommen. 104 p., photographies noir/blanc, Editions Cabédita, Bière, 2020. In French.

Bridget Dommen specializes in writing books for young people about the lives of personalities who have shaped our times. Ella Maillart was a privileged witness to the 20th century and its political and social upheavals. To better understand her approach in the context of the time, summaries of the political situation in the different countries she traveled through help to understand the incidents described by the protagonist.

Im Land der Sherpas

Afterword by Felicitas Hoppe, 224 p., 65 b/w photographs, Ed.Nagel & Kimche, Zurich, 2018. In German.

This book is constructed as a diptych, showing a strong relationship between text and image. It describes an itinerary that goes from the periphery to the center: Ella Maillart reminds us that she lives a quest for meaning in the "heart" of Asia. The first part of the book gives pride of place to the ethnological investigation: the observer steps back, and objects and customs are carefully described from the outside. After the experience of trekking to the sacred lake of Gosainkund, the gaze turns inward, in particular towards religious practices. This text is valuable for those interested in Buddhism and Hinduism.

Oasis interdites - De Pékin au Cachemire

In French. Preface by Nicolas Bouvier. Edition Collector, Payot & Rivages, Paris, 416 pages, 2018. 62 photographies n/b. Reissue of the original of this classic, published by Editions Grasset in 1937. In January 1935, Ella Maillart leaves Peking in the direction of the interior with her companion Peter Fleming, a correspondent for The Times... The idea is to cross China from east to west, to reach the forbidden oases of Sinkiang, and from there to reach Kashmir, on the other side of the world, through the mule passes of Pamir and Karakoram...