Civilization, that great fraud of our times, has promised man that by complicating his existence it would multiply his pleasures. ... Civilization has promised man freedom, at the cost of giving up everything dear to him, which it arrogantly treated as lies and fantasies. ... Hour by hour needs increase and are nearly always unsatisfied, peopling the earth with discontented rebels. The superfluous has become a necessity and luxuries indispensable. - Isabelle Eberhardt
Actress Juliet Stevenson retraces the journeys of turn-of-the-century traveler and writer Isabelle Eberhardt. BBC, 1994.
Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and author. As a teenager, Eberhardt, educated in Switzerland by her father, published short stories under a male pseudonym. She became interested in North Africa, and was considered a proficient writer on the subject despite learning about the region only through correspondence. After an invitation from photographer Louis David, Eberhardt moved to Algeria in May 1897. She dressed as a man and converted to Islam, eventually adopting the name Si Mahmoud Saadi. Eberhardt's unorthodox behaviour made her an outcast among European settlers in Algeria and the French administration.
Eberhardt's acceptance by the Qadiriyya, an Islamic order, convinced the French administration that she was a spy or an agitator. She survived an assassination attempt shortly thereafter. In 1901, the French administration ordered her to leave Algeria, but she was allowed to return the following year after marrying her partner, the Algerian soldier Slimane Ehnni. Following her return, Eberhardt wrote for a newspaper published by Victor Barrucand and worked for General Hubert Lyautey. In 1904, at the age of 27, she was killed by a flash flood in Aïn Séfra.
Isabelle was a journalist and war correspondent. Her disguise helped her to penetrate the peoples of the Sahara to get to know their customs. In Aïn Sefra she met Lyautey, a general charged with the task of reestablishing order on the border between Algeria and Morocco. With him, Isabelle was able to enter the camps and observe the conflicts first-hand. Not only did she disguise herself as a man, she also observed military discipline and was treated the same way as the other soldiers. In 1904 Isabelle she met up with her husband in Aïn Sefra and in a flash flood their clay house collapsed on top of them. “I know that this way of life is dangerous, but the moment of danger is also the moment of hope,” she wrote. She published many articles during her lifetime, and after her death her diaries and fiction were published.
Yasmina et Autres Nouvelles by Isabelle Eberhardt translated by Ahcene Douas
Isabelle Eberhardt: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Nomad by HEDI ABDEL-JAOUAD
Feminize Your Canon: Isabelle Eberhardt at The Paris Review
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