Ella Maillart [SEP] occupation
Ella Maillart
Ella Maillart (or "Ella K. Maillart"; 20 February 1903, Geneva – 27 March 1997, Chandolin) was a Swiss adventurer, travel writer and photographer, as well as a sportswoman.
Early life.
Ella Maillart had been captain of the Swiss Women's land hockey team and was an international skier. She also competed in the 1924 Summer Olympics as a sailor in the Olympic monotype competition.
Career.
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. Her early books were written in French but later she began to write in English. "Turkestan Solo" describes a journey in 1932 in Soviet Turkestan. Photos from this journey are now displayed in the Ella Maillart wing of the Karakol Historical Museum. In 1934, the French daily "Le Petit Parisien" sent her to Manchuria to report on the situation under the Japanese occupation