Luce Boulnois

Lucette Boulnois (1931–2009) was a French historian of the Silk Road and trans-Himalayan trade. Her career was book-ended by her seminal 1963 book La route de la soie, which was translated into nine languages, and her 2001 elaboration on that work titled La route de la soie-dieux, guerriers et marchands. UNESCO described her as "a world-renowned authority on the history of the fabled trade route".

Early life Lucette Boulnois was born in France in 1931. She studied Russian and Chinese at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris. and Sino-Nepalese relations. She worked at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) for nearly 30 years in Nepalese and Himalayan studies before retiring in 1992.

In 2001, Boulnois published her summation of her researches as La route de la soie-dieux, guerriers et marchands, which was translated into English by Helen Loveday and published in 2004 as Silk Road: Monks, warriors & merchants on the Silk Road.

Death Boulnois died in 2009. UNESCO described her as "a world-renowned authority on the history of the fabled trade route".

Selected publications La route de la soie. Preface by Paul Demiéville. Arthaud, Paris, 1963. (Signes des temps. No. 16.) The Silk Road. Translated by Dennis Chamberlin. Allen & Unwin, London; Dutton, New York; 1966. Cartes du Népal dans les bibliothèques de Paris et de Londres. Éditions du centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris, 1973. "Démons et tambours au désert de Lop. Variations Orient-Occident" in Médiévales, No. 22-23, pp. 91–115, 1992. La route de la soie-dieux, guerriers et marchands. Editions Olizane, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001. Silk Road: Monks, warriors & merchants on the Silk Road. Translated by Helen Loveday with additional material by Bradley Mayhew & Angela Sheng. Odyssey Books & Guides, Hong Kong, 2004. "Gold, wool, and musk: Trade in Lhasa in the Seventeenth Century" in Gray Tuttle & Kurtis R. Schaeffer (Eds.) (2013) The Tibetan History Reader. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 457–476.