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Cover Story

Flashback -- a French family in India

Bombay 1 Adolescent Marguerite, around 1885, surrounded by her brother Paul and her sisters Jeanne and Suzanne (her youngest sister, Elisabeth, born in 1883, is absent from the photo)

The book presents an account of a French woman in Bombay at the beginning of 20th century

BySukant Deepak

August 31, 2020 (IANSlifeThe French Institute in India, in collaboration with Oxford Bookstores and Sanbun Publishers will organise a webinar (September 3 at 6 pm) around the launch of the English translation of the book, ‘Chroniques Indiennes /Indian Chronicles: Letters from a French Woman in Bombay (1902-1904)’ by Marguerite de Bure.

 

Bombay 2  The hotel in Bombay, in which Marguerite and Pierre de Bure stayed from May to June 1902. From Marguerite de Bure's collection of postcards.
Bombay 2  The hotel in Bombay, in which Marguerite and Pierre de Bure stayed from May to June 1902. From Marguerite de Bure's collection of postcards.

 

The texts have been collected by the descendants of the author, Marie-Anne and Laurence Merland and translated by Elsa S Mathews. The book has been published by Sanbun Publishers under the PAP Tagore programme.

 

View of Mazagon, in the suburbs of Bombay. Engraving extract from L'Inde des Rajahs, Louis Rousselet (Hachette 1877). Source gallica.bnf.fr
View of Mazagon, in the suburbs of Bombay. Engraving extract from L'Inde des Rajahs, Louis Rousselet (Hachette 1877). Source gallica.bnf.fr

 

The book, which presents an account of a French woman in Bombay at the beginning of the 20th century was first published in French in 2007 and comprises letters collected and presented by Marie-Anne and Laurence Merland as well as photos and postcards from Marguerite’s own collection and engravings drawn from L’Inde des Rajahs (India of the Kings) written by her uncle Louis Rousselet.

 

Parsi woman and child. Engraving extract from L'Inde des Rajahs, Louis Rousselet. (Hachette, 1877). Source gallica.bnf.fr
Parsi woman and child. Engraving extract from L'Inde des Rajahs, Louis Rousselet. (Hachette, 1877). Source gallica.bnf.fr

 

The hour-long session promises to take back in time into another century and examine the relationship with India, and especially Bombay, of a French family.ago. Part epistolary, part chronicle, the book assures to be an insight into a city, a society and a woman.

 

Chroniques indiennes
Chroniques indiennes

 

 

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Sukant Deepak can be contacted at Sukant.d@ians.in

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