New episode of “Compagnons de voyage”, our series of portraits of travel writers. Discovering a woman in a hurry, but forgotten: Titaÿna, icon of the Roaring Twenties and the only female great reporter of her time.
Born in 1897 in the Pyrénées-Orientales, Élisabeth Sauvy chose Titaÿna as her pen name, “ by independence and individualism “, hoping that this name of Catalan origin which evokes “ the heroine of an unknown mystery (…) be a guarantee of success “. And in his own way he was, since the French journalist and writer, fond of adventure and thrills, rose for a time to the rank of great reporter, alongside Joseph Kessel or Albert Londres. Until she loses her footing, merges into collaboration and falls into disgrace and then into oblivion.
Back in the 1920s, the public is eager for long-term stories and distant horizons. The world widened at the end of the Great War and in the all-powerful press, a new genre: literary reporting, triumphed. It was during this effervescent and particularly creative parenthesis of the Roaring Twenties that Titaÿna went on to travel, publish in the press and books like Far, The caravan of the dead, A woman among the headhunters Where The failures of the adventure.
An aviation pioneer, daredevil traveler and avant-garde feminist, Titÿana multiplies flight hours, accidents and world tours. Constantly in search of scoop and recognition, she is eager both for sincere encounters with unknown peoples of Indonesia or Oceania, but also for exclusive interviews with the powerful of her time (Mussolini, Atatürk, Liautey or even Hitler), interviews she obtains without concern for etiquette and sometimes strictly journalistic contradiction. For a time, she will also try her hand at documentary cinema, already aware that she has a new language for telling the story of the world and others.
One day in Morocco, the next day on a cargo ship for America, Titaÿna is a fascinating, troubled and elusive character. But beyond her broken destiny – she ended up in exile in the United States, forgotten by all, and died alone in 1966 – her writings remain and still strike today with their modernity. Pioneer of immersion and impression journalism, at the height of a man or rather a woman, she will criticize with her sharp and poetic pen, the ravages of colonization and the mirages of exoticism, still so powerful in her time. . A lucidity, a humanism that she will, alas, not put to good use during the Second World War.
Today, in France, his writings are being rediscovered. His books are notably republished by Éditions Marchialy. And the biography that journalist and writer Benoît Heimermann devoted to Titaÿna came out in 2020. This hyper-documented, sensitive and fascinating book, reads like an adventure novel and remains to this day a reference for anyone who would like to follow this woman from letters in a men’s environment, which was nicknamed in its time “ the woman with the soles of the wind “.
With Benoît Heimermann, author of Titayna. The Adventurer of the Roaring Twenties available at Editions Points Aventure / Seuil.
Some works of Titaÿna:
- A woman among headhunters, Titayna. 1934. 2016 reissue by Éditions Marchialy.
- The failures of the adventure, Titayna. 1938. 2020 reissue by Éditions Marchialy.
- The Prancing Beast, Titayna. To the Associated Publishers – Les Éditions du Monde moderne, 1925.
- Far, Titayna. Editions Flammarion. 1929.
Some works by Benoît Heimermann:
- Titayna. The Adventurer of the Roaring Twenties, a biography of Benoît Heimermann. 1994. Reissue 2020 by Éditions Point Aventures / Seuil.
- The Latécoère-Aéropostale Line, Benoit Heimermann. 2011. Villalobos-Latécoère Editions.
- Women of the poles, Benoit Heimermann. Paulsen Editions. 2016.
- Albert London. The feather and the wound, Benoit Heimermann. Paulsen Editions. 2020.
