Among the devotees of the Olympia Press line of paperback DBs (“dirty topics”) published in Paris in the 1950s, (see kenton, Maxwell) few volumes could match the humidifying effects of the two novels written by a mysterious Pakistani woman who went by the pseudonym of Ataullah Mardaan. Her first, Kama Houri, published in 1956, concerned a beautiful European girl’s experiences as a sex slave in a remote village somewhere within stroking distance of the Hindu Kush. It was unrelentingly erotic in content, with a strongly sadomasochistic motif. Deva-Dasi, which arrived in Parisian bookstalls in the following year, followed along similar lines and was equally effective in its intent.
Ataullah was supposedly the daughter of a renowned Pakistani doctor, now married to a Dutch photographer and living in Paris, eager to sell Olympia her sumptuous smut in return for some needed pin money. She delivered her work in installments, a few chapters at a time, waiting for a check while Olympia Press owner Maurice Giro-dias and his assistants read the arousing pages. According to Girodias, Ms. Mardaan was a beautiful and alluring figure with long, braided black hair and always clad in flowing silk saris. A mysterious figure in Olympia’s colorful history, she disappeared from Paris after the second topic and her actual identity and subsequent activities remain unknown despite the efforts of literary investigators. Was she real or merely the imaginary incarnation of one of Olympia’s assorted house names? Girodias swore to Ataullah’s existence and recalled her with fondness. “She was, in every way,” he would write, “what my father and I had dreamed a pornographer should be.”
Works
- Deva-Dasi (1957);
- Kama Houri (1956)
