Stories and journal notes by an extraordinary young woman—adventurer and traveler, Arabic scholar, Sufi mystic and adept of the Djillala cult.

"Not long before her death Isabelle Eberhardt wrote: "No one ever lived more from day to day or was more dependent upon chance. It is the inescapable chain of events that has brought me to this point, rather than I who have caused these things to happen." Her life seems haphazard, at the mercy of caprice, but her writings prove otherwise. She did not make decisions; she was impelled to take action. Her nature combined an extraordinary singlness of purpose and an equally powerful nostalgia for the unattainable."—Paul Bowles, preface.

"One of the strangest human documents that a woman has given the world."—Cecily Mackworth, I Came Out of France

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was an explorer who lived and traveled extensively throughout North Africa. She wrote of her travels in numerous books and French newspapers, including Nouvelles Algériennes [Algerian News] (1905), Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam [In the Hot Shade of Islam] (1906) and Les journaliers [The Day Laborers] (1922).

Paul Bowles has taped and translated numerous strange legends and lively stories recounted by Mrabet: Love with a Few Hairs (novel), The Lemon (novel), The Boy Who Set Fire (stories), Harmless Poisons, Blameless Sins (stories), The Beach Café & Look & Move On (autobiography) and The Big Mirror (novella).

Translated by: Paul Bowles