Flashback: A French family in India

New Delhi: The French Institute in India, in collaboration with Oxford Bookstores and Sanbun Publishers will organise a webinar on September 3 (at 6 p.m.) around the launch of the English translation of the book, "Chroniques Indiennes/Indian Chronicles: Letters from a French Woman in Bombay (1902-1904)" by Marguerite de Bure.

The texts have been collected by the descendants of the author, Marie-Anne and Laurence Merland and translated by Elsa S Mathews. The book has been published by Sanbun Publishers under the PAP Tagore programme.

The book, which presents an account of a French woman in Bombay at the beginning of the 20th century was first published in French in 2007 and comprises letters collected and presented by Marie-Anne and Laurence Merland as well as photos and postcards from Marguerite's own collection and engravings drawn from L'Inde des Rajahs (India of the Kings) written by her uncle Louis Rousselet.

The hour-long session promises to take back in time into another century and examine the relationship with India, and especially Bombay, of a French family. Part epistolary, part chronicle, the book assures to be an insight into a city, a society and a woman.