Writers and Travellers

Well-known or lesser-known, contemporary or from times past, they travelled the world to bring back their stories and other accounts.

• A

Antoine (1944-): singer, songwriter, and above all, a traveller across all the world's seas.

• B

Ibn Battûta (1304-1369): one of the first explorers who, over thirty years, visited North Africa and Asia, reaching the farthest corners of China.

Isabella Bird (1831-1904): a life of exploration and writing for this Englishwoman, who was one of the most recognised in her field during her time.

Nicolas Bouvier (1929-1998): from 1953, his travels took him to the East and the Far East, and in the 1980s, to North America. His accounts, as well as his iconographic works and photographic exhibitions, earned him numerous awards.

André Brugiroux (1937-): a pioneer of "backpackers," his first journey lasted 18 years, from 1955 to 1973, during which he travelled 400,000 km by hitchhiking on one dollar a day.

Bill Bryson (1951-): travel and humour are the two pillars of this American author’s works, who settled in Europe.

• C

Blaise Cendrars (1887-1961): the name Blaise Cendrars is synonymous with travel. By train, boat, or car, the author of *Bourlinguer* often roamed the world penniless. His life was already a novel in itself...

Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989): he was a traveller, a storyteller, and a lover of the unusual.

Jean Luc Coatalem (1959-): Breton, journalist, and travel writer.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924): twenty years of sailing the world’s seas and twenty years of writing for this explorer of the human condition.

Anita Conti (1899-1997): the first French female oceanographer and author of works on the marine world.

Christophe Cousin (1976-): two years cycling around the world, followed by many other journeys to meet people, particularly nomads.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1997): the commander of the *Calypso* and a body of work that introduced the general public to the underwater world around us.

• D

Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969): the famous traveller and lover of Asia, who was the first European woman to enter Lhasa in 1924.

• E

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904): a short but rich life discovering Algeria and North Africa.

Jean-Louis Étienne (1946-): doctor and explorer with a preference for Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.

• F

Patrice Franceschi (1954-): writer, filmmaker, sailor, and pilot, but above all an adventurer who took part in several expeditions around the world.

• H

Mike Horn (1966-): Mike Horn is a South African explorer and, above all, an extreme adventurer.

• K

Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932-2007): Polish journalist and writer known for his reports and writings on Africa.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969): in his time, he chose to travel across the American continent to discover an America different from the one already packaged for him.

Joseph Kessel (1898-1979): journalist, novelist, adventurer, Kessel lived through the 20th century as a witness among men.

• L

Jacques Lacarrière (1925-2005): French writer known for his travel accounts, particularly about Greece.

Jacques Lanzmann (1927-2006): among his many activities, walking and travel played an important role in Jacques Lanzmann’s life.

Michel Le Bris (1944-): beyond his travel accounts, he is best known for the literary festival in Saint-Malo, *Étonnants Voyageurs*, of which he is the director.

Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009): the author of *Tristes Tropiques* and one of the great figures of the humanities.

Jack London (1876-1916): *The Sea-Wolf*, *The Call of the Wild*... titles that evoke the humanist work of Jack London, a true backpacker whose adventurous life, from San Francisco to the Klondike and the South Seas, was but the perpetual draft of a militant literary work.

Albert Londres (1884-1932): the benchmark in journalism and writing, often committed (Devil’s Island, colonisation in Africa), gathered from the four corners of the world.

Pierre Loti (1850-1923): naval officer whose novels were inspired by his travels on all the world’s seas.

• M

Ella Maillart (1903-1997): traveller, journalist, author, and photographer, particularly of pre-war China and Central Asia.

Jean Malaurie (1922-): ethnologist, geographer, writer, and above all, *the* specialist on the Far North.

Bernard Moitessier (1925-1994): writer and wanderer of the South Seas.

Henry de Monfreid (1879-1974): "But what is Adventure? An accident I always tried to avoid."

Théodore Monod (1902-2000): one of the last great explorer-naturalists of the desert and the greatest 20th-century specialist on the Sahara.

• P

Ida Pfeiffer (1797-1858): Austrian traveller and explorer who began travelling at 45 and later completed two round-the-world trips.

Jean Potocki (1761-1815): scholar, writer, and great traveller, this Francophile Pole crisscrossed Europe, North Africa, and part of Asia in his time.

Odette du Puigaudeau (1894-1991): French ethnologist who devoted much of her writing to the Sahara.

• R

Jean Raspail (1925-2020): writer and journalist, sometimes controversial, who travelled the world discovering populations threatened by confrontation with modernity.

• S

Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944): the author of *The Little Prince*, who drew part of his inspiration from his travels.

Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-1942): a painful destiny, a vocation for love that exalted itself in suffering, dreams, and travels, notably those made with Ella Maillart.

Victor Segalen (1878-1919): poet, doctor, sailor, ethnographer, and archaeologist, he spent part of his life in China.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894): an Edinburgh Scot who died in Samoa, best known for his adventure novel *Treasure Island*.

• T

Sylvain Tesson (1972-): a trained geographer, Sylvain Tesson loves to roam the planet in complete autonomy to write his short stories and travel accounts.

Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003): writer and explorer of the Arabian deserts, known for his descriptions of nomadic peoples in Africa and Asia.

• V

Nicolas Vanier (1962-): the Canadian Far North, Alaska, Siberia—destinations that inspired him.

Paul-Émile Victor (1907-1995): explorer, scientist, ethnologist, writer, and founder of the French Polar Expeditions.

Michel Vieuchange (1904-1930): adventurer and the first European to visit the ruins of the forbidden city of Smara in the Sahara.

• W

Olivier Weber (1958-): academic, reporter, writer, Olivier Weber has always been interested, particularly in his works, in lost causes and indigenous peoples.

• Z

Cizia Zykë (1949-2011): a life of adventure far removed from the gentle heroes often presented in travel literature.