Rosita Forbes, née Joan Rosita Torr, (16 January 1890 – 30 June 1967) was an English travel writer, novelist and explorer. In 1920–1921 she was the first European woman to visit the

Kufra Kufra () is a basinBertarelli (1929), p. 514. and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of the 19th century, Kufra became the centre and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in ...

Oasis in

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

(together with the Egyptian explorer

Ahmed Hassanein Ahmed Hassanein Pasha, Royal Victorian Order, KCVO, Order of the British Empire, MBE () (31 October 1899 – 19 February 1946) was an Egyptian courtier, diplomat, politician, and explorer, geographic explorer. Hassanein was the tutor, Chief of ...

), in a period when this was closed to Westerners.Dorothy Middleton
"(Joan) Rosita Forbes"
in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press 2004).

Early life

Joan Rosita Torr was born at

Riseholme Hall Riseholme Hall is an early 18th-century country house in Riseholme, West Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England. It was designed by William Railton and is a grade II listed building From about 1840 until 1887, it served as the official residence for t ...

, near

Lincoln, England Lincoln () is a cathedral city and non-metropolitan district, district in Lincolnshire, England, of which it is the county town. In the 2021 Census, the city's district had a population of 103,813. The 2021 census gave the Lincoln Urban Area, u ...

, the eldest child of Herbert James Torr, a landowner, and Rosita Graham Torr. Her father was a Member of Parliament.Duncan J. D. Smith
Rosita Forbes Biography
(2009), at Slideshare.

Career

During

the First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

she drove an ambulance in France for two years. From 1917 to 1918, she travelled in Asia with another unhappy military wife, Armorel Meinertzhagen, visiting 30 countries. After the war, she and Meinertzhagen travelled in North Africa, "with little money but much ingenuity."Kamila Shamsie
"Rosita Forbes: The Travel Writer They Couldn't Tame"
''Telegraph'' (22 April 2014). The result was her first book, ''Unconducted Wanderers'' (1919). The next year, she disguised herself as an Arab woman named "Sitt Khadija" to visit the Kufra Oasis in 1921, the first European woman (and only the second European) known to have seen that location. The way she portrayed the expedition's organiser,

, as a minor part of the journey was criticized by her book's reviewers and his colleagues, who pointed out that he was an Oxford-educated diplomat. In 1937, Forbes was the second Westerner and first Western woman to visit places from Sahara to Samarkand, which is today are in Libya to Uzbekistan. She had a gift of a genuine traveller; she lived and mixed with the locals, made friends with the Afghans, Indians, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Kazaks and Afghans and bonded well with the natives although she was, most of the time, the only woman during the journey. The journey is described in her travelogue called ''The Sahara to Samarkand''. Rosita Forbes found an audience as a daring and witty travel writer and lecturer between the wars, and as a novelist; but her reputation was further tarnished in the 1930s by her description of walking through a flower garden with

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

, and her meetings with

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who, upon assuming office as Prime Minister of Italy, Prime Minister, became the dictator of Fascist Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 un ...

.H. M. Teo
"Gypsy in the Sun: The Transnational Life of Rosita Forbes"
in Desley Deacon, Penny Russell, and Angela Woollacott, eds., ''Transnational Lives: Biographies of Global Modernity, 1700-Present'' (Palgrave Macmillan 2010): 273-285. She published a book of interviews in 1940, ''These Men I Knew'', insisting that she was only reporting their politics, not endorsing them; she also lectured in support of the British war effort in Canada and the United States. Soon, the McGraths went to live in the Bahamas to avoid further controversy. Forbes was made a fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, and received medals from the Royal Antwerp Geographical Society and the French Geographical Society, and an award in 1924 from the Royal Society of Arts. She also made an early travel film, ''From Red Sea to Blue Nile'', and two of her novels became silent films (''

Fighting Love ''Fighting Love'' is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Nils Olaf Chrisander and starring Jetta Goudal, Victor Varconi and Henry B. Walthall. The film survives complete. It is based on the 1925 novel '' If the Gods Laugh'' by the Brit ...

'' (1927) and '' The White Sheik'' (1928), based on her novels '' If the Gods Laugh'' and '' King's Mate'', respectively). Her 1924 biography, ''The Sultan of the Mountains: The Life Story of Raisuli'', was loosely adapted for the screen in 1972 by

John Milius John Frederick Milius (; born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter and film director. He is considered a member of the New Hollywood generation of filmmakers. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s for writing the scripts for ''The L ...

as ''

The Wind and the Lion ''The Wind and the Lion'' is a 1975 American epic historical adventure film written and directed by John Milius, and starring Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith, and John Huston. The film is loosely based on the real-life Perdicaris affa ...

''."The Wind, the Lion, and Rosita Forbes"
''Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies'' (2 October 2012).

Personal life

Joan Rosita Torr married Col. Robert Foster Forbes in 1911. They divorced after she left him in 1917, selling her wedding ring and sailing for South Africa. She was married again in 1921, to Col. Arthur Thomas McGrath. She was widowed in 1962, and she died in 1967, at home in

Warwick, Bermuda Warwick Parish is one of the nine parishes of Bermuda. It is named after Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1587-1658). It is located in the central south of the island chain, occupying part of the main island to the southeast of the Great Sou ...

, aged 77 years.

Works by Rosita Forbes

Non-fiction

''Unconducted Wanderers''
1919 *
The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara
', 1921 *''The Sultan of the Mountains: The Life Story of Raisuli'', 1924 *''From Red Sea to Blue Nile: Abyssinian Adventure'', 1925 (also published under the title ''From Red Sea to Blue Nile: A Thousand Miles of Ethiopia''?) *''Adventure'', 1928 *''Conflict: Angora to Afghanistan'', 1931 *''Eight Republics in Search of a Future: Evolution & Revolution in South America'', 1932 *''Women called Wild'', 1935 *''Forbidden Road--Kabul to Samarkand'', 1937 (also published under the title ''Russian Road to India--By Kabul and Samarkand'') *''These Are Real People'', 1937 *''A Unicorn in the Bahamas'', 1939 *''India of the Princes'', 1939 *''These Men I Knew'', 1940 *''Gypsy in the Sun'', 1944 *''Appointment with Destiny'', 1946 *''Henry Morgan, Pirate'', 1946 *''Sir Henry Morgan, Pirate & Pioneer'', 1948 *''Islands in the Sun'', 1949

Selected novels

* '' If the Gods Laugh'' (1925) * ''Sirocco'' (1927) * '' King's Mate'' (1928) * ''The Cavaliers of Death'' (1930) * ''The Extraordinary House'' (1934) * ''The Golden Vagabond'' (1936)

References

External links

*The

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

ha
several images of Rosita Forbes
including one political cartoon. *Margaret Bald, ed., ''From The Sahara to Samarkand: Selected Travel Writings of Rosita Forbes, 1919-1937'' (Axios Press 2010). * *
Forgotten Travellers: Appointments in the Sun
Essay on Rosita Forbes
Rosita Forbes
at the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forbes, Rosita English travel writers English women travel writers English explorers Female explorers British explorers of Africa Explorers of the Libyan Desert 1890 births 1967 deaths Fellows of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society People from West Lindsey District Writers from Lincolnshire