André Malraux, Explorer Searching for the Queen of Sheba's Capital City: From Aerial Archaelogy to Literary Reporting

Abstract

From his early youth, Andre Malraux was fascinated by the mysterious exoticism of lost civilizations. The Queen pfSheba: "A geographic adventure" is a work of rare quality written by Malraux shortly after he received the 1933 Prix Goncourt. Part African, part Arab, part Jewish and part Christian, the ancient Queen of Sheba has been present for centuries in the minds of millions in and around the eastern horn of Africa. Such an important regional figure could hardly have escaped the attention of the intrepid traveler and impassioned museum rat Malraux. Fascinated by Louis Arnaud's 1841 adventure in Mareb, Malraux made a plan to fly over the city of Sheba and bring back aerial photographs. As special envoy of the daily newspaper L'lntransigeant, he undertook this perilous aerial adventure, hoping to detect vestiges of the Queen of Sheba's mysterious capital. Following his aerial excursion over Happy Arabia, Malraux the aviator-archaeologist returned with a breathtaking "geographic report" on the city of Balkis, whose namesake was herself a woman of multiple names and deep mystery. This article aims to take a closer look at Malraux's remarkable fly-over.