Ella Maillart
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ellamaillart.bsky.social
Ella Maillart
@ellamaillart.bsky.social
18 followers 33 following 45 posts
It is always our own Self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that Self, the better.
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ellamaillart.bsky.social
Guertchakoff, Serge. "Une grande dame vagabonde: Ella Maillart" (A Great Lady Vagabond: Ella Maillart), in Revue du Vieux Genève. 1993, pp. 72–86.

Blaser, Françoise. "Rester, partir: il faut choisir" (To Stay, To Go: One Must Choose), in Journal de Genève. July 10, 1994, p. 17.
https://www.bge-geneve.ch/iconographie/oeuvre/murat-n-1962-10-17-ella-01 Ella Maillart at the interior of the Geneva Cointrin Airport terminal in Meyrin, Switzerland, on October 17, 1962. The photograph was taken by Swiss photographer Nicolas Murat as part of a series documenting Maillart's activities at the airport. The image shows Maillart interacting with an airport staff member while handling a travel bag with an "AIR-INDIA" logo. Geneva Airport, also known as Cointrin International Airport, is located approximately 3 miles (5 kilometres) north of the city center of Geneva.
December 22, 2025 at 10:48 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
"I do not expect anything from the outside. I have patience. I possess my bearings to follow the path that leads to the immutable center, to the One without a second, that which is the first and last word of life."

Cruises & Caravans (1942)

www.encyclopedia.com/women/encycl...
Ella Maillart
December 22, 2025 at 10:39 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Books - 5

"Except when I was sailing or skiing I felt lost, half alive. Everything I saw or read was depressing. The 'war to end war' was bringing in its train compromise, artificial ideals, and palavers that failed to establish a real peace."

- Cruises and Caravans
Inside flyleaf of Ella Maillart's 'Cruises and Caravans' Inscription pasted into the copy of 'Cruises and Caravans' which Ella Maillart presented to Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi at his ashram in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India.
December 21, 2025 at 2:18 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Ella Maillart's Travel Secrets

In a collection of unpublished texts, the great traveler shares her philosophy of travel.

"Between 1940 and 1945, she retreated to an ashram in Tiruvannamalai where she undertook the most perilous journey, a journey to the very depths of her being."

archive.is/p8GvJ
Photo of Ella Maillart on the deck of her chalet at Chandolin, Switzerland.
December 14, 2025 at 11:23 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
During the Second World War, Ella Maillart (1903-1997), an adventurer and journalist, spent a number of years in India searching for the meaning of life.

www.academia.edu/13208925/The...
Ramana Maharshi, by Ella Maillart (original in monochrome)
December 13, 2025 at 5:57 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Books - 4

“That surplus energy of youth must be used up. It is the drive and essence of life: is life itself. It must in each generation be ‘getting on'."

H.G. Wells
Inside photo of Ella Maillart in Gypsy Afloat, 1942 Inside epigraph by H.G. Wells in Gypsy Afloat, Ella Maillart, 1942
December 12, 2025 at 8:10 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Ella amassed a fabulous collection of photographs which offer a glimpse into a world forever lost. Among these are nearly 4,000 colour slides never before published. which Sept mook invites you to (re)discover on the 120th anniversary of her birth.

www.sept.info/magazine/743...
Photo of Ella Maillart by Annaliese Hollmann on the cover of Sept Nook.
December 7, 2025 at 10:08 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
“The life we lead is like a journey”, Annemarie Schwarzenbach wrote. “When we stay in a city, our lodgings feel stuck for all eternity. We leave it behind to fly in the face of fear.”

- Rebel Angel, The life and times of Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Padraig Rooney.

www.the-tls.com/lives/biogra...
Monochrome photograph of Annemarie Schwarzenbach with her back to a light-coloured wall, eyes closed, face to the sun, legs spread astride, holding a cigarette, and wearing black trousers and belted jacket, as well as what appears to be a turtleneck sweater.
December 5, 2025 at 3:32 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
"As I greeted the Maharshi by joining hands, my cock-sure Ti-Puss jumped on the couch where the Sage spends all his time. the surprised Maharshi put his newspaper aside, smiled at the thin kitten and touched her head."

Ti-Puss, 1951

archive.arunachala.org/newsletters/...
Sketch by Jane Adams of Sri Ramana Maharshi on his sofa with Ti-Puss.
November 27, 2025 at 3:34 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Books - 3

"I was not submerged by, or integrated into, Asia. Travelling in company, one does not learn the language so quickly. The natives do not make their own of you. You penetrate less deeply into the life about you.”

marketgardenreader.wordpress.com/2024/05/15/f...
Front cover of Forbidden Journey, Ella Maillart, 1937. Camels crossing a flat sandy landscape with rocky peaks behind. Map of some of the territory covered in Forbidden Journey, Ella Maillart, 1937.
November 22, 2025 at 7:00 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Photo by Ella Maillart, 1941.

Kunju Swami served as a personal attendant of Ramana Maharshi from 1920 to 1932. After Bhagavan's mahanirvana, he continued to live a simple and spiritual life spreading the Maharshi's teachings and guiding seekers. He passed away in 1994 at the age of 95.
Ella Maillart's photo of Kunju Swami sitting at the peak of Arunachala, 1941, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India.
November 19, 2025 at 7:20 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Books - 2

"The entire book does not spare the reader the filth, the vermin, the discomforts, the crudities of the daily life, none of which, however, did Miss Maillart seem to mind in the least, so keen was her constant enjoyment." - New York Times

archive.is/ZSx1y
Front cover of Turkestan Solo: Mounted adventures in Central Asia during the 1930s, Ella Maillart. An Equestrian Travel Classic. Back cover of Turkestan Solo: Mounted adventures in Central Asia during the 1930s, Ella Maillart. An Equestrian Travel Classic. Ella Maillart was the adventurous Swiss woman who made her name as an intrepid explorer and one of the most remarkable woman travelers of the early 20th century. An amazing sports woman, she first represented her country as the only woman competitor at the 1924 Paris Olympics in the single-handed boat-sailing contest, then later raced for Switzerland as a member of the international ski team. Yet these outdoor activities only developed Maillart's insatiable curiosity to travel east, leaving behind the confines of her early life in Geneva in search of the perfect life that she was instinctively seeking. Her later adventures took her across many continents and various oceans. Maillart sailed the Mediterranean in a yawl, traveled with famed travel English travel writer Peter Fleming from Peking to Kashmir, explored Tibet with a half-wild tiger-cat in search of spiritual enlightenment, and finally drove 4,000 miles from war-tom Europe to the fabled Khyber Pass in a battered Ford car. Yet her solo journey through Central Asia in the early 1930s was considered to be a highlight of her adventure-filled life. Setting off from the Tien Shan mountains of Mongolia, Maillart rode horses and camels to the far away walls of fabled Bokhara. "Turkestan Solo" is her vivid account of this wonderful, mysterious and dangerous portion of the world, complete with its Kirghiz eagle hunters, lurking Soviet secret police, and the timeless nomads that still inhabited the desolate steppes of Central Asia. If any book can give its reader the ability to look back in time, this one does, written as it was by one of the world's foremost female equestrian explorers. Amply illustrated, it remains a timeless adventure classic.
November 18, 2025 at 10:22 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Ella Maillart’s article for The Sphere, 1 October 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.
"' DANK DEM SCHWEIZERVOLK": This notice, expressing their appreciation of the hospitality they are many hundreds of Jews have poured into Switzerland, creating quite a problem for the authorities A HAVEN FROM PERSECUTION: Austrian Jewish refugees wait in camps where they are now being harboured in Switzerland. The Swiss are unable to give them work as the Confederation has an acute unemployment problem, and eventually they will be sent to countries where labour conditions are more favourable. Quite a large proportion may be drafted to the United States WAITING FOR A CHANCE TO BEGIN ANEW: Typical Austrian Jewish refugees in a Swiss camp. The man on the right is a skilled musician and whiles away much of his time by practising, hoping all the time for the day when he will be able to join an orchestra and earn his own livelihood again. When Germany annexed Austria last spring, the fate of Jewry in the old realm of the Habsburgs was at once sealed, and since then there has been a steady exodus-a large proportion of these unfortunate folk crossing the frontier into Switzerland in order to escape persecution. ... The above pictures were taken at one of the refugee camps by Ella Maillart, the noted woman traveller, who, it may be remembered, journeyed from China to India in company with Peter Fleming. A JEWISH SANCTUARY AS SEEN BY ELLA MAILLART
November 17, 2025 at 3:52 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Books - 1

"From the moment you arrive at the central station, there's scarcity: long queues at the left-luggage office, overcrowded or exorbitantly priced hotels, a pale capital teeming with vagrants, where nothing good happens except in the midst of chaos ..."

brokentuneblog.com/2015/12/28/e...
Front cover of Ella Maillart's first published book, 'Among The Russian Youth' (Parmi La Jeunesse Russe'), 1932. Back cover of Ella Maillart's first published book, 'Among The Russian Youth' (Parmi La Jeunesse Russe'), 1932.
November 16, 2025 at 3:51 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Ella wrote the introduction to Kenneth Wimmel's 'The Alluring Target: In Search of the Secrets of Central Asia', which was published in 1996 to strong sales and critical praise.

afsa.org/remembering-...
From left, Kenneth Wimmel, travel writer Ella Maillart, Sydney Hausrath, and Don Hausrath in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 1994.
November 4, 2025 at 3:06 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Samadhi on the death anniversary of Vishwanath Swami (1904-79), Ella Maillart's confidante and intimate companion whilst at Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu from 1940-45.

ashramsofindia.com/ella-maillar...
Samadhi shrine of Viswanath Swami, Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India. Photograph of Sri Ramana Maharshi over a plaque detailing Vishwanath Swami's life story: SAMADHI OF SRI VISWANATHA SWAMI (Editor: THE MOUNTAIN PATH) 1904 to 1979 ABSORBED IN ARUNACHALA 0N 22-10-1979 and a photograph of Vishwanath Swami himself.
October 22, 2025 at 4:16 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
At its 2024 general meeting, the committee converted the Association des Amis d'Ella Maillart into a non-profit private-law Ella Maillart Foundation.

www.fundraiso.ch/en/organisat...

www.rts.ch/play/tv/coul...
Jean-Claude Zufferey, President of the Ella Maillart Foundation.
October 4, 2025 at 7:52 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
A precious testimony on the last days of Ella Maillart's life in her chalet "Atchala", in Chandolin, where her disciple Anne Deriaz accompanied and assisted her for two years until the end of Ella's journey.

actes-sud.fr/chere-ella-e...
Book Cover: Photo of Ella Maillart in her later years wearing a comical straw hat as she stands against the backdrop of the Swiss Alps. Anne Deriaz Chère Ella Elegie pour Ella Maillart Actes Sud
October 4, 2025 at 12:09 AM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
Inscription by Ella Maillart in her copy of Cruises and Caravans which she presented to Ramana Maharshi in 1943.

It remains to this day in the Archives at Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, India.

#India #Tiruvannamalai #TamilNadu #EllaMaillart #Spirituality #Advaita #RamanaMaharshi
Dear Bhagavan, Here is the book you helped me to write here during the summer before last. It is a 'war production' intended for young readers, and you may remember that the publishers had sent me, as a sample of that series, a book by the mountaineer. Smythe. Once more I form the deep wish that after so many years spent in dealing with the external world - as you may see by glancing through my autobiography - I shall now make swift progress in discovering the inner life leading to You. Yours - Ella. Sri Ramanasramam, 9-2-43.
August 27, 2025 at 6:40 PM
ellamaillart.bsky.social
"Here in India I have started on a new journey which, I know, will take me further than before towards the perfect life I was instinctively seeking."

Cruises and Caravans, 1942
Photo by Ella Maillart of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, January 1941.
August 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM