I briefly mentioned Juanita Harrison and Merze Tate (possibly another lost lady of lit??) in a piece about travel writing in Ethiopia a year or so ago after hearing Sarah Broom mention how she learned about Harrison from Imani Perry:
Harrison’s travel narratives or journal entries published as My Great, Wide, Beautiful World (Harrison, 1936) included plans to take the Sudan Government steamer up the Nile and into Abyssinia (the Ethiopian empire that historically encompassed modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea): “it would have been a little hard to travel through 2 deserts but what would I care as long as I was getting my moneys [sic] worth” (p. 94). Without a permit from the Sudan Government in Cairo, and being unwilling to part with her passport, she decided to sail to Port Said instead. In 1973, Tate travelled to northern Ethiopia visiting eight historic and sacred sites, calling it “the grand climax of her journey” (Savage, 2023, p 205).
Both great discussions!
I briefly mentioned Juanita Harrison and Merze Tate (possibly another lost lady of lit??) in a piece about travel writing in Ethiopia a year or so ago after hearing Sarah Broom mention how she learned about Harrison from Imani Perry:
Harrison’s travel narratives or journal entries published as My Great, Wide, Beautiful World (Harrison, 1936) included plans to take the Sudan Government steamer up the Nile and into Abyssinia (the Ethiopian empire that historically encompassed modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea): “it would have been a little hard to travel through 2 deserts but what would I care as long as I was getting my moneys [sic] worth” (p. 94). Without a permit from the Sudan Government in Cairo, and being unwilling to part with her passport, she decided to sail to Port Said instead. In 1973, Tate travelled to northern Ethiopia visiting eight historic and sacred sites, calling it “the grand climax of her journey” (Savage, 2023, p 205).