Lexington Books
Pages: 246
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¼
978-0-7391-8592-6 • Hardback • November 2014 • $115.00 • (£88.00)
978-0-7391-8593-3 • eBook • November 2014 • $109.00 • (£84.00)
Lynda Chouiten teaches literature at the University of Boumerdès.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Possessing the Land, Dividing the People
Chapter 2: Islam: The Not-So-Straight Way to Power
Chapter 3: Desiring Power: The Transvestite Westerner and the Eroticised Native
Chapter 4: Journeys: Travel, Writing, and the Changing Self
Conclusion: Eberhardt’s Life as a Novel-like Epic
Appendix 1: Glossary
Appendix 2: A Chronology of Eberhardt’s Life
Bibliography
About the Author
In this carefully analysed, well-researched study, Lynda Chouiten argues that Isabelle Eberhardt was not the subversive figure she is often made out to be.
— Modern Language Review
This is a well-researched, important contribution to the field of Orientalist studies. Chouiten examines the contradictions and ambiguities in Eberhardt’s life and writings and offers a rare academic critique of both. Chouiten’s exposure of Eberhardt is a thoroughly contemporary one. Readers will benefit from her meticulous scholarship and from her reading of Eberhardt through critical lenses of feminism, orientalism, and postcolonialsm.
— Coeli Fitzpatrick, Grand Valley State University
Lynda Chouiten’s challenging book on Isabelle Eberhardt provides the first full-length critical study focusing on the writings of a remarkable figure, best known for her travels in North Africa, cross-dressing, and conversion to Islam. Yet Eberhardt also defended traditional gender hierarchies and the separation of peoples, simultaneously engaging in romantic idealization and denigration. Chouiten’s valuable account develops a rich theoretical perspective on the Carnivalesque mirage in Eberhardt’s work. As an Algerian scholar educated there and in Ireland, Chouiten has made an original and lasting contribution to the literature of travel and colonialism with Isabelle Eberhardt and North Africa: Nomadism as a Carnivalesque Mirage.
— Daniel Carey, National University of Ireland