Isabelle Eberhardt
| Isabelle Eberhardt | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 17 February 1877 Geneva, Switzerland |
| Died | 21 October 1904 (aged 27) Aïn Séfra, Algeria |
| Nationality | Swiss |
| Occupation | Explorer, writer |
Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and writer. Eberhardt, educated in Switzerland by her father, published short stories under a male pseudonym as a teenager. 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 by European settlers in Algeria and the French administration.
She was accepted by the Qadiriyya, an Islamic order, which convinced the French administration that she was a spy or an agitator. Eberhardt survived an assassination attempt shortly thereafter. In 1901 she was ordered to leave Algeria by the French administration, but was allowed to return the following year after marrying long-time partner (and Algerian soldier) Slimane Ehnni. After returning to Algeria, Eberhardt wrote for a newspaper published by Victor Barrucand and worked for General Hubert Lyautey. In 1904, she was killed in a flash flood in Aïn Sefra at age 27.
Eberhardt had been in posession of several manuscripts, and following her death Barrucand collected and began publishing them. The first was released in 1906 to critical acclaim. She was posthumously seen as an advocate of decolonisation, and streets were named after her in Béchar and Algiers. Eberhardt's life has been the subject of several works, including the 1991 film Isabelle Eberhardt and the 2012 opera Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt.
Eberhardt was born in Geneva, Switzerland, to Alexandre Trophimowsky and Nathalie Moerder (née Eberhardt). Trophimowsky was an anarchist, tutor and former Orthodox priest-turned-atheist, and Nathalie was the illegitimate daughter of a middle-class Lutheran German and a Russian Jew. Nathalie had married widower Pavel de Moerder, a general forty years her senior, who hired Trophimowsky to tutor their children Nicolas and Vladimir.
...
Wikipedia