Flora Tristan

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Flora Tristan, grandmother of Paul Gauguin

Flora Tristan (born April 7, 1803 in Paris, France - died November 14, 1844 in Bordeaux, France) was a socialist writer and activist. She was also one of the founders of modern feminism and, through Alina María Chazal, Paul Gauguin's grandmother. Her complete name was Flore-Celestine -Therèse-Henriette Tristan-Moscoso. Her father, Mariano Tristán y Moscoso, was an Arequipa-born Peruvian colonel of the Spanish Navy, and her mother, Anne Laisney, a Frenchwoman. Her parents met in Bilbao, Spain during her father's stay there.

When her father died before her fifth birthday in 1807, the situation of Flora and her mother changed drastically from the high standards of living they were accustomed to, prompting them in 1832 to go to Arequipa, to claim her paternal inheritance which was in possession of her uncle Pío de Tristán. She remained in Peru until July 16, 1834. Though she never secured the inheritance that brought her there, Tristan wrote a travel diary about her experiences in Peru during the country's tumultuous post-independence period. The diary was published in 1838 as Pérégrinations d'une paria.

Mario Vargas Llosa, in his historical novel The Way to Paradise, analyzes Flora Tristan and her grandson Paul Gauguin's contrasting quests for the ideal life through their experiences outside their native France.

Flora Tristan herself authored several works, the best known of which are Peregrinations of a Pariah (1838), Promenades in London (1840), and The Workers' Union (1843).