author
Bruneau de Laborie
1871–1930
An adventurous French writer turned years of travel, sport, and exploration into vivid books about Africa and the wider world. His work carries the energy of firsthand experience, shaped by a life that moved between journalism, fencing, and long expeditions.
1 Audiobook
Du Cameroun au Caire par le désert de Libye : chasses au Tchad
by Bruneau de Laborie
About the author
Born in 1871 in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, Émile Bruneau de Laborie was a French explorer, journalist, and writer whose books grew out of an unusually active life. Records from the Bibliothèque nationale de France identify him as a founder of the national fencing federation known as Armes de France, a columnist for Le Temps and Le Figaro, and an explorer.
French reference sources also describe him as a prominent figure in fencing and as an African explorer. He published writing linked to his travels, including work on Central Africa and Cameroon, and his reputation seems to rest on that mix of field experience and public writing rather than on a single famous novel.
He died in Bangui in 1930. For listeners, his appeal is the sense that these books come from someone who was not writing from a distance: he had lived a restless, outward-looking life and brought that firsthand perspective onto the page.