Odette Zoé Keun (10 September 1888 in Pera – 14 March 1978 in Worthing) was a Dutch

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

, journalist and writer, who traveled extensively in Europe, including the

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and the early

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Early years

Keun was the daughter of Gustave Henri Keun, at the time first dragoman and secretary of the Dutch consulate in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, and his second wife, Helene Lauro, who was of Italian/Greek ancestry. When her father died in 1902, the family was left in relatively impoverished state. She became rebellious and her mother sent her to an Ursuline boarding school in the Netherlands. After three years she had decided to become a nun and moved to a Dominican monastery in

Tours Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...

. She resigned two years later and went back to Istanbul. She could no longer find herself in the dogma of the church, the role of the Dominicans in the fight against the Cathars, and, last but not least,

celibacy Celibacy (from Latin ''caelibatus'') is the state of voluntarily being unmarried, sexually abstinent, or both. It is often in association with the role of a religious official or devotee. In its narrow sense, the term ''celibacy'' is applied ...

. There was also the more practical reason; after her mother's death, she was the source of support for her sisters. She published her first book "Les Maisons sur le Sable" (1914) in which she described her farewell to the faith, her views on social problems, and her amorous wishes.

Love and secret services

The first World War brought her to Paris. She worked for the Red Cross in

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

. At that time, several secret services were interested in her because she expressed strong criticism of British and French colonial politics. After falling in love with him, she traveled to her lover Bernard Lavergne who settled in Algiers. She traveled into the desert on horseback and contributed to health care for the Berbers. Her social involvement was further demonstrated by her call for the Berbers to demand better facilities. A new lover, the Georgian prince Grisha, led her to

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. She wrote about this trip and her affair in her book ''Au Pays de la Toison d’Or'' (1924). In late spring 1921, while staying with friends in

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and two days before she would have travelled to Batum, she was arrested by the British military police, extrajudicially and presumably for her socialist leanings, and was deported to Sebastopol in Russia. For three months she endured the abuses of the Cheka, before she was let go to

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. She wrote about her arrest and experiences in Russia in ''Sous Lénine. Notes d’Une Femme Déporté en Russie par les Anglais'' (Paris 1922).Ruud Beeldsnijder
Odette keun. Een Nederlands socialiste in het revolutionaire Rusland
(in Dutch)

Wells and the search for a third way

She wanted to return to Istanbul but because of the turbulent events this city was no longer an option, so she returned to Paris. Between 1924 and 1933 Keun was the partner of

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

, with whom she lived in Lou Pidou, a house they built together in Grasse, France. Wells, who was 22 years her elder, dedicated his books ''The World of William Clissold'' (his longest) and ''The Bulpington of Blup'' to her. Later she worked as secretary at the consul-general in the United States. In her 1937 book ''A Foreigner Looks at the TVA'', she describes the organization of George W. Norris's Tennessee Valley Authority as "the way in which a participatory liberal democracy could embrace modernization, to parry the influence of Fascist and Communist models of development, while avoiding the perils of statism." After 1939 Keun lived in England, first in London, from 1941 in Torquay, and eventually in Worthing,

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Publications

In her time, Odette was an established and recognized author, with a long list of publications, including: * Les Maisons sur le Sable (Sansot), 1914 * Mesdemoiselles Daisne de Constantinople (Sansot), 1917 * Les Oasis dans la Montagne (Calmann-Lévy), 1920 * Une Femme Moderne (Flammarion), 1921 * Sous Lénine; notes d'une femme déportée en Russie par les Anglais (Flammarion), 1922 ** My Adventures in Bolshevik Russia (Bodley Head), 1923 (English translation by the author) * Au Pays de la Toison d’Or (Flammarion) ** In the Land of the Golden Fleece, through independent menchevist Georgia (Bodley Head) 1924 (English translation by Jessiman) * The Man Who Never Understood (Bodley Head) (published anonymously) * Prince Tariel: a story of Georgia (Cape), 1925 ** Prins Tariel (Dutch translation by V.d.Horst) (Arbeiderspers), 1926 ** Le Prince Tariel (French translation by. Fouret) (Malfère), 1927 * La Capitulation (Malfère), 1929 * Dans l'Aurès inconnu: soleil, pierres et guelâas (Malfère), 1930 * A Foreigner Looks at the British Sudan (Faber & Faber), 1930 * I Discover the English (Bodley Head), 1934 * Darkness from the North (Brinton), 1935 * A Foreigner Looks at the TVA (Longmans & Co), 1937 * I Think Aloud in America (Longmans & Co), 1939 * And Hell Followed ... A European ally interprets the war for ordinary people like herself (Constable & Co), 1942 * Trumpets Bray (Constable & Co), 1943 * Continental Stakes; Marshes of Invasion, Valley of Conquest and Peninsula of Chaos (Br. Cont. Syndicate), 1944 * Soliloquy on some Matters of Interest to the Author (Keun), 1960 A biography of Odette Keun was written by Monique Reintjes, and first published in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

in 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keun, Odette 1888 births 1978 deaths Dutch travel writers Dutch socialists Dutch women writers People from Beyoğlu Dutch people of Greek descent Dutch people of Italian descent Dutch socialist feminists 20th-century Dutch journalists Dutch writers in French