Isabelle Eberhardt dreamed of escaping the gloom of Europe, and when she was nineteen she realized her desire in North Africa--Dar el Islam. In 1904, when she died in a flash flood in the Sahara, she was only twenty-seven years old, and had led a legendary, tempestuous life that encompassed both subversive political anarchism and the mysticism of Islam.

This selection of short stories, reportage, and travel journals, which glow with sensuous detail, superbly evokes the life of the desert towns and nomadic peoples of the Saharan region of Morocco and Algeria. As a radical individualist, Eberhardt identified with and defended the oppressed; yet she was a romantic as well, and ambiguous about the "civilizing" role of France. Today she has become an iconic figure at the center of discussions about gender, race, colonialism, representation, and writing.

In supplementary essays, Laura Rice provides historical and cultural context for Eberhardt's life and work, and explores her role as transgressor; Karim Hamdy surveys the realities of colonial exploitation, and places Eberhardt's membership in the Qadiriya Sufi brotherhood within the larger context of Islam.

INTRODUCED BY WILLIAM ATKINS, author of The Immeasurable World 'I am merely an eccentric, a dreamer who wishes to live far from the civilized world, as a free nomad.' Isabelle Eberhardt's writing chronicles, in passionate prose, her travels in French colonial North Africa at the turn of the 20th century. Often dressed in male clothing and assuming a man's name, she worked as a war correspondent, married a Muslim non-commissioned officer, converted to Islam and survived an assassination attempt, all before dying in a flash flood at the age of 27. Desert Soul brings together her 'Wanderings' and 'The Daily Journals', detailing the ecstatic highs and the depressive lows of her short but unique and extraordinary life.

Born in 1877 in Geneva, Switzerland, Isabelle Eberhardt became a rebel at an early age. She dressed like a man so she could have access to areas forbidden to women, smoked in public, and scandalized Genevan society. Already multilingual (French, German, and Russian), she began studying Arabic language and Islamic culture and eventually converted to Islam and joined a Qadiriyya Sufi brotherhood. Eberhardt traveled throughout North Africa and wrote about her experiences in short stories, journals, and reflections. She married an Algerian and led a legendary and stormy life that included subversive political anarchism, the mysticism of Islam, numerous love affairs, and most importantly, writing unmatched by her contemporaries. Writings from the Sand, Volume 1, at once the document of a remarkable life and a literary treasure, appears here in English for the first time. Volume 1, including journals, diary entries, and observations of life in North Africa, offers a view of the culture and people of French Algeria rarely seen by outsiders-the peasants, prostitutes, mystics, criminals, and other marginalized members of a colonized society. This translation brings to life a brilliant woman ahead of her time while also raising questions-about North African history, colonialism, gender representation, and writing-that resonate in our day.

Born in 1877 in Geneva, Switzerland, Isabelle Eberhardt became a rebel at an early age, dressing like a man so she could have access to areas forbidden to women, smoking in public, and otherwise scandalizing Genevan society. Already multilingual, she studied the Arabic language and Islamic culture and eventually converted to Islam. Eberhardt traveled throughout North Africa, wrote about her experiences, and married an Algerian. Her legendary, short, and stormy life included subversive political anarchism, the mysticism of Islam, numerous love affairs, and, most importantly, writing unmatched by her contemporaries.
The merit of Eberhardt's writings, similar to that of many artists, was neither known nor valued until after her death. The companion to volume 1, "Writings from the Sand, Volume 2," showcases the prose of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating female wanderers and includes previously unpublished stories and an unfinished novel. This new volume exemplifies Eberhardt's creation of identity in fiction as her writing explores the world of prostitutes, Bedouins, and French colonists in exotic tales of love and conquest.