My Journey to Lhasa

This early-twentieth-century adventure travel memoir by a female explorer is “the sort of thriller yarn that keeps you up all night and is too soon over” ( Ms . ). In this extraordinary mix of travelogue and autobiography, Madame Alexandra David-Néel details her 1923 expedition to Lhasa as the first Western woman to enter Tibet’s Forbidden City. Recounting how she traveled with her adopted son, posing as a beggar and relying on her fluency in Tibetan dialects and culture, David-Néel relates a story of survival among harsh conditions and the ever-present danger of being discovered as a white woman, as well as her triumphant meeting with the Dalai-Lama. A compelling narrative by an adventurer, explorer, and passionate student of Buddhism, My Journey to Lhasa is an inspiring work of travel literature by a remarkable woman. “My Journey to Lhasa . . . involves us intensely in a world that no longer exists—that of free Tibet. . . . [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 . . . frequently dangerous place, where she had to exercise the utmost ingenuity to survive.” —The New York Times Book Review “A lively account . . . and a classic portrait of Tibet, its region, and its people.” —The Bloomsbury Review “David-Néel was indisputably a fearless traveler, a rogue’s rogue. Her account has the power to awe even today.” —Outside “As a traveler, she has performed a brilliant feat.” —New Statesman

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