ISABELLE EBERHARDT (1877–1904) was a Swiss explorer and author.  As a child and adolescent, Eberhardt became deeply interested in North Africa, and was considered a proficient writer on the subject despite learning about the region only through correspondence.  She moved to Algeria in 1897 where she remained most of her life.

Eberhardt dressed as a man for the greater freedom this allowed, and developed a literary talent and a gift for languages, including Arabic.  She converted to Islam and eventually adopted the name Si Mahmoud Essadi, travelling alone throughout North Africa in the guise of a male itinerant Qadiriyya Sufi.  She married an Algerian soldier, worked as a war reporter, helped the poor and needy and fought against the injustices of French colonial rule.  Eberhardt openly rejected conventional European morality of the time, preferring to choose her own path, and drank alcohol, experimented with drugs and had numerous affairs.  This unorthodox behaviour made her a social pariah among both the European settlers in Algeria and the French administration, who thought her a spy and tried to have her assassinated.  She died in a flash flood in Aïn Sefra in 1904, aged 27.

The majority of her writings were not published until after her death.  IN THE SHADOW OF ISLAM (1920), which established Eberhardt as among the best writers of literature inspired by Africa, is an extraordinary evocation of the desert and its people.  Gripped by spiritual restlessness and the desire to break free from the confinements of her society, Eberhardt traveled into the Sahara desert, and into the heart of Islam.  Her experiences inspired a profound self-examination, and a book that today is regarded as one of the most astonishing travel documents of all time and a feminist classic in its own right.

Her diaries are translated in THE NOMAD and THE PASSIONATE NOMAD.  Written between 1900 and 1902, they are another fascinating record of her strange, nomadic lifestyle, her love of the desert, and her unique understanding of Arab culture and politics.  They are also an intensely personal account of her search for inspiration as a writer, of her feeling for her husband, her mystical sense of Islam, and her fascination with death.

THE OBLIVION SEEKERS & OTHER WRITINGS is a selection of her best stories and vignettes of African life.


The following books are in PDF unless otherwise noted:

* In the Shadow of Islam (Peter Owen, 1993).  S. Bangert, trans. — PDF + ePUB
* Nomad, The: Diaries of IE (Summersdale, 2001).  E. Kershaw, ed.
* Oblivion Seekers & Other Writings (City Lights, 1975).  P. Bowles, trans.
* Passionate Nomad, The: The Diary of IE (Beacon, 1988).  R. Kabbani, ed.
* Silhouettes d’Afrique (Lights, Spring 2013).  M. Steele, trans.

SEE ALSO:

Wilfred Thesiger
https://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/30813447/

T.E. Lawrence
https://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/31212455/

Paul Bowles
https://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/32417580/

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