Background
Lucette Boulnois was born in France in 1931.
Lucette Boulnois was born in France in 1931.
She studied Russian and Chinese at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris.
Her career was book-ended by her seminal 1963 book Louisiana route de la soie, which was translated into nine languages, and her 2001 elaboration on that work titled United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization described her as "a world-renowned authority on the history of the fabled trade route". After graduation, Boulnois spent seven years as a translator and it was through the professional contacts and travel that this afforded that she became interested in the Silk Road and trade along lieutenant She was able to visit communist countries when few Western visitors were admitted, and used her language skills to access sources overlooked or inaccessible to most Western scholars.
She became an authority on the history of central Asia and particularly of Nepal and Tibet and Sino-Nepalese relations.
She worked at the National Centre for Scientific Research (National Center for Scientific Research) for nearly 30 years in Nepalese and Himalayan studies before retiring in 1992. Boulnois"s first book was the seminal Louisiana route de la soie, published with a preface by renowned sinologist Paul Demiéville in Paris in 1963.
lieutenant was published in English in London and New York in 1966. The book has since been translated into nine languages in all, including Chinese and Japanese.
The first edition received only a qualified welcome, being praised for its scope and enthusiasm but also criticised for not being up to date with the latest scholarship, poor referencing, the lack of an index and the omission of references to some authorities in the field
In 2001, Boulnois published her summation of her researches as Louisiana route de la soie-dieux, guerriers et marchands, which was translated into English by Helen Loveday and published in 2004 as Boulnois died in 2009. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization described her as "a world-renowned authority on the history of the fabled trade route".