Un couple de voyageuses au Sahara à l’époque coloniale : Odette du Puigaudeau (1894-1991) et Marion Sénones (1886-1977)

Abstract

Between the two wars and after World War II, Odette du Puigaudeau undertook several long journeys to Mauritania (as well as to Senegal, Mali, and Morocco) with her companion Marion Sénones. They were an unusual in being two joint women travelers during the colonial period. The article sets out to draw defining contours of a Saharan literature in the context of feminist and ecocritical issues. On the one hand, Puigaudeau’s writings have a memorial function. On the other hand, in her early texts, one can detect an attitude in favour of colonial ‘pacification’. Only in her later writings does she take a stand against the exploitation of the desert as a space for industrialisation and nuclear experimentation.

Keywords

• travel
• feminism
• colonialism
• complicity
• ecocriticism