Jacolliot, Louis

Born 1837 in Charrolles; died 1890 in Saint-Thibaut-les-Vignes (Seine-et-Marne). French writer.

Jacolliot lived for many years in India and Oceania, and he held judicial posts in the French colonies. Back in France, he described his adventures in such books as Travels in the Land of the Bayaderes (1873), Travels in the Land of Elephants (1876), and Travels in the Land of the Fakir Dervishes (1880; Russian translation, The Fakir Dervishes, 1910). A series of Jacolliot’s books deal with questions of ethnography and the comparative study of Indian religion and mythology. His travel sketches and his fascinating adventure stories The Fire-eaters (1887; Russian translation, 1910), In the Slums of India (1888; Russian translation, 1890), and Lost in the Ocean (1893; Russian translation, 1910) are imbued with sympathy for the oppressed and are strongly critical of British, Portuguese, and French colonizers. Jacolliot’s novels were popular in Russia.