Rosita Forbes(1893-1967)
- Writer
Rosita Forbes, daughter of a British MP, was an indomitable and
widely-travelled adventuress. She journeyed to the most exotic, remote
and dangerous locations and lived to write about them. She would visit
ancient bazaars and mix freely with the local population. Along the way, she would
interview colourful nomadic characters. Forbes crossed
through Libyan deserts on a camel in the 1920's, searching for the
forbidden city of Kufara. In the 1930's, she journeyed from Peshawar to Samarkand via
Kabul, Afghanistan. Other adventures took her to the
Middle East, Abyssinia, Kenya, and South America.
Rosita had a flair for languages from childhood and loved to travel. She joined her first husband, a British army colonel, on his garrison duties in China, India and Australia. During World War I, she drove ambulances on the Western Front. In 1918, now divorced, Forbes was commissioned by a French magazine to study French colonialism in Africa and was dispatched to Morocco. From then on, she developed in interest in both history and politics which were later infused with her travel writings. Importantly, she wrote a biography of Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni, the chieftain of a Berber tribe in the Atlas Mountains, whom she had interviewed briefly in 1923. This work was fictionalised in the motion picture The Wind and the Lion (1975), starring Sean Connery as Raisuni.
Rosita had a flair for languages from childhood and loved to travel. She joined her first husband, a British army colonel, on his garrison duties in China, India and Australia. During World War I, she drove ambulances on the Western Front. In 1918, now divorced, Forbes was commissioned by a French magazine to study French colonialism in Africa and was dispatched to Morocco. From then on, she developed in interest in both history and politics which were later infused with her travel writings. Importantly, she wrote a biography of Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni, the chieftain of a Berber tribe in the Atlas Mountains, whom she had interviewed briefly in 1923. This work was fictionalised in the motion picture The Wind and the Lion (1975), starring Sean Connery as Raisuni.