Foster, Barbara & Foster, Michael. The secret lives of Alexandra David-Neel; a biography of the explorer of Tibet and its forbidden practices.

Overlook. 329p. illus. bibliog. index, c1998, 1-58567-329-3. $19.95.

Enigmatic in her own right, this French-woman born in genteel circumstances in 1868 led a life of intrigue and adventure that influenced modern radical thinkers such as Beats Kerouac and Ginsberg. Feminist, opera singer, mystic student, adventurer, she was the first European woman to enter the holy city of Lhasa. An intrepid explorer, she trekked through the Himalayas disguised as a beggar, accompanied by her adopted Sikkimese son, Yongden, stalking and photographing snow leopards and studying the practices of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1927 she wrote her first book, My Journey to Lhasa. Both a flamboyant personality and a private person, David-Neel periodically reinvented herself, rising Phoenix-like in a fresh persona. In 1968 Jeanne Denys published a volume called A David-Neel au Tibet, asserting that David-Neel had never performed the feats of which she had written. Authors Barbara and Michael Foster refute this accusation. and with their access to first-hand information from people who knew her and hitherto unavailable documents from the India office, they present a fascinating portrait of this indomitable explorer of the inner and outer terrain. Victoria Williams, daughter of the British Trade Agent who received the bedraggled David-Neel as she emerged from the wilds of Tibet, replied. when asked why David-Neel persisted in her quests, "Why? To show that a woman could do it!" E.B. Boatner, Writer, Twin Cities, MN