Ella Maillart

[2] From the 1930s onwards she spent years exploring Muslim republics of the USSR, as well as other parts of Asia, and published a rich series of books which, just as her photographs, are today considered valuable historical testimonies.

It was there that she met Peter Fleming, a well-known writer and correspondent of The Times, with whom she would team up to cross China from Peking to Srinagar (3,500 miles), much of the route being through hostile desert regions and steep Himalayan passes.

Ella Maillart later recorded this trek in her book Forbidden Journey, while Peter Fleming's parallel account is found in his News from Tartary.

In 1937 Maillart returned to Asia for Le Petit Parisien to report on Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, while in 1939 she undertook a trip from Geneva to Kabul by car, in the company of fellow Swiss writer, Annemarie Schwarzenbach.

[3] She spent the war years at Tiruvannamalai in the South of India,[4] learning from different teachers about Advaita Vedanta, one of the schools of Hindu philosophy.

Ella Maillart, one of the great travelers of the 20th century
Ella Maillart in Iran 1939/40
Ella Maillart’s article for Weekly Magazine, 1938, describes the arrival of Jewish refugees from Austria . Switzerland is portrayed as generous, the refugees as a burden. Article in the collection of the Jewish Museum of Switzerland .