Isabelle Eberhardt

Isabelle Eberhardt
Eberhardt in 1895 photographed by Louis David
Born	17 February 1877 Geneva, Switzerland
Died	21 October 1904(1904-10-21) (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. 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 to 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 long-time partner, the 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, aged 27, she was killed by a flash flood in Aïn Sefra.

In 1906 Barrucand began publishing her remaining manuscripts, which received critical acclaim. She was seen posthumously 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.

Early life and family background

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,^[1][2] and Nathalie was the illegitimate daughter of a middle-class Lutheran German and a Russian Jew.^[3][4] Nathalie was considered to be part of the Russian aristocracy,^[5] meaning her illegitimacy was most likely a secret.^[2] She married widower Pavel de Moerder, a Russian general forty years her senior, who hired Trophimowsky to tutor their children Nicolas and Vladimir.^[5]

Around 1871 Nathalie took the children and left her husband for Trophimowsky, who had abandoned his own wife and family.^[2][6] They left Russia, and possibly stayed in Turkey or Italy^[5] before settling in Geneva.^[6] Around 1872 Nathalie gave birth to Augustin; de Moerder, who came to Switzerland in a failed attempt to reconcile with Nathalie, accepted the son as his own and allowed him to have his surname. However, the older siblings believed that Trophimowsky was the child's father. General de Moerder died several months later,^[5] and despite their separation left Nathalie all his money.^[2] The family remained in Switzerland; four years later Eberhardt was born, and was registered as Nathalie's illegitimate daughter. Biographer Françoise d'Eaubonne speculated that Eberhardt's biological father was the poet Arthur Rimbaud, who had been in Switzerland at the time. Other historians consider this unlikely and find it more likely that Tromphimowsky was the father, noting that Nathalie and Trophimowsky were rarely apart, that Eberhardt's birth did not impact negatively on their partnership, and that Eberhardt was Trophimowsky's favorite child.^[5]

Eberhardt was well-educated; all the children in the family were home-schooled by Trophimowsky.^[5][7] She was fluent in French, spoke Russian, German and Italian,^[1] and was taught Latin, Greek and classical Arabic. Eberhardt, who read the Koran with her father, later became fluent in Arabic.^[8][9] She studied philosophy, metaphysics, chemistry,^[7] history and geography, though she was most passionate about literature, reading the works of authors including Pierre Loti, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Leo Tolstoy, Voltaire and Émile Zola while she was a teenager.^[5] At an early age she began wearing male clothing, enjoying its freedom,^[10] and her nonconformist father did not discourage her.^[11] The children of de Moerder resented their step-father, and due to growing conflict within the family Nathalie left the home and her relationship with Trophimowsky in 1888.^[7]

In 1895 Eberhardt published a short story in the journal La Nouvelle Revue Moderne under the pseudonym of Nicolas Podolinsky; "Infernalia" (her first published work) is about a medical student's physical attraction to a dead woman.^[5]

Move to North Africa

In November 1895, Eberhardt was informed by a letter that Augustin had joined the French Foreign Legion and was assigned to Algeria. She wrote to him, asking him to send her a detailed diary of what he saw in North Africa.^[5] Eberhardt also corresponded with Eugène Letord, a French officer stationed in the Sahara who had placed a newspaper advertisement for a pen pal.^[12][13] In 1895 she published "Vision du Moghreb" [sic] (English: Vision of the Maghreb),^[5] a story about North African religious life,^[5] under her Podolinsky pseudonym in La Nouvelle Revue Moderne.^[13] Eberhardt had a "remarkable insight and knowledge" of North Africa^[13] for someone acquainted with the region only through correspondence, and her writing had a strong anti-colonial theme. Louis David, an Algerian-French photographer touring Switzerland who was intrigued by her work, met her and invited her to visit him in Bône, Algeria.^[14] In 1895 he took a photograph of Eberhardt wearing a sailor's uniform, which would become widely associated with her in later years.^[15][16]

Eberhardt relocated to Bône with her mother in May 1897.^[5][13][17] They initially lived with David and his wife, who both disapproved of the amount of time Eberhardt and her mother spent with Arabs. Eberhardt and her mother did not like the Davids' attitude, typical of European settlers in the area.^[5] They later avoided the country's French residents, renting an Arabic-style house far from the European quarter. Eberhardt, aware that a Muslim woman could go out neither alone nor unveiled, dressed as a man in a burnous and turban.^[14] Her behaviour made her an outcast with the French settlers and the colonial administration, who watched her closely.^[18] Eberhardt and her mother converted to Islam. Eberhardt began to write stories, including the first draft of her novel Trimardeur. Her story Yasmina was published in a local French newspaper.^[14][17] Her mother died on 28 November 1897^[5] of a heart attack in Bône, and was buried there under the name of Fatma Mannoubia.^[19][20]

Although Eberhardt largely devoted herself to the Muslim way of life, she frequently partook of marijuana and alcohol^[20] and had several lovers.^[21] The reason for her Arabic companions' tolerance of her lifestyle has been debated by biographers. According to Cecily Mackworth, the "delicate courtesy of the Arabs" led them to treat Eberhardt as a man because she wished to live as one.^[21]

Travels to Europe

Eberhardt's half-brother, Vladimir, committed suicide in April 1898; his older brother Nicolas, who resented Trophimowsky's intrusion in their lives and had returned to Russia 15 years earlier, had threatened to forcibly bring Vladimir back to Russia.^[5] Augustin, ejected from the Foreign Legion due to his health, returned to the family villa in Geneva in November 1898. Trophimowsky died of throat cancer in May 1899.^[5] Eberhardt intended to sell the villa, although Trophimowsky's legitimate wife opposed the execution of the will. Unable to sell the villa immediately, Eberhardt mortgaged it and returned to Africa on the first available ship.^[20] With both parents dead, she considered herself free of human attachments and able to live as a vagabond.^[22] Eberhardt relinquished her mother's name, and called herself Si Mahmoud Saadi.^[20][23] She began wearing male clothing exclusively and developed a masculine personality, speaking and writing as a man.^[24] Eberhardt behaved like an Arabic man, challenging gender and racial norms.^[18] Asked why she dressed as an Arabic man, she invariably replied: "It is impossible for me to do otherwise."^[25] A few months later, Eberhardt's money ran low and she returned to Geneva to sell the villa; she discovered that her lawyer was aiding Trophimowsky's wife and there was little money left for her.^[26]

Encouraged by a friend, she went to Paris to become a writer but had little success. While in Paris Eberhardt met the widow of Marquis de Morès. Although de Morès was reportedly murdered by Tuareg tribesmen in the Sahara, no one had been arrested. When his widow learned that Eberhardt was familiar with the area where de Morès died, she hired her to investigate his murder. The job benefited Eberhardt, who was destitute and longed to return to the Sahara. She returned to Algeria on 21 July 1900, settling in El Oued. According to Sahara expert R. V. C. Bodley, Eberhardt made little effort to investigate de Morès' death; Bodley considered this due to a combination of the unwillingness of the French to co-operate in an investigation and Eberhardt's fatalism rather than deliberate dishonesty.^[27]

She made friends in the area and met an Algerian soldier, Slimane Ehnni. They fell in love, and eventually lived together openly. This alienated Eberhardt from the French authorities, who were already outraged by her lifestyle.^[28] During her travels she made contact with the Qadiriyya, a Sufi order. The order was led by Hussein ben Brahim, who was so impressed with Eberhardt's knowledge of (and passion for) Islam that he initiated her into his zawiya without the usual formal examination.^[29] This convinced the French authorities that she was a spy or an agitator, and they placed her on a widely-circulated blacklist. The French transferred Ehnni to the spahi regiment at Batna, possibly to punish Eberhardt (whom they could not harm directly).^[30] Too poor to accompany him to Batna, Eberhardt attended a Qadiriyya meeting in Behima at the beginning of 1901 where she hoped to ask a marabout for financial assistance. She was attacked by a man with a sabre, dodging most of his thrusts until he was overpowered and disarmed by others at the meeting.^[31] Eberhardt suspected that he was an assassin hired by the French authorities.^[5] Her arm and shoulder were badly injured, and she was brought to the military hospital at El Oued the following day. After Eberhardt recovered, she joined Ehnni with funds from members of the Qadiriyya who regarded her survival as a miracle.^[31] Further meetings with Sufi leader Lalla Zaynab also concerned French authorities.^[32]

After Eberhardt and Ehnni were reunited, the French ordered her to leave North Africa; as an immigrant, she had no choice but to comply. Ehnni requested permission from his military superiors to marry Eberhardt (which would have enabled her to stay), but his request was denied. She travelled to France in May 1901 and was summoned back to Constantine in the mid-June to give evidence at the trial of her attacker, Abdallah ben si Mohammed. Abdallah testified that God ordered him to kill Eberhardt, whom he had never seen or heard of before the attack.^[33] Eberhardt said that she bore no grudge against Abdallah, forgave him and hoped that he would not be punished. Her attacker received life imprisonment, although the prosecutor had asked for the death penalty. When the trial ended, Eberhardt was again ordered to leave the country and returned to France. She lived with her brother Augustin and his wife, working with him (disguised as a man) as a dock labourer. At this time, Eberhardt worked on her novel Trimardeur.^[34]

She was encouraged to write by playwright Eugène Brieux, who opposed French rule in North Africa and supported Arab emancipation. He sent her a several-hundred-franc advance and tried to have her stories published, but could not find anyone willing to publish pro-Arab writing. Eberhardt, unfazed, continued writing; her morale lifted when Ehnni was transferred to a spahi regiment near Marseille to complete his final months of service.^[35] He did not require permission from his military superiors to marry in France,^[5] and they were married^[36] on 17 October 1901. This allowed Eberhardt to return to Africa; in February 1902 Ehnni was discharged, and they returned to Bône to live with his family.^[35]

Later life and death

After Eberhardt and Ehnni moved to Algiers,^[37] she accepted a job offer from Al-Akhbar newspaper publisher Victor Barrucand in March 1902. By 1903 several of her short stories had been published in the newspaper; Trimardeur began appearing as a serial in August 1903. Barrucand dispatched Eberhardt to report on the after-effects of the 2 September 1903 Battle of El-Moungar. She stayed with French Foreign Legion soldiers and met Hubert Lyautey, the French officer in charge of Oran, at their headquarters. Eberhardt and Lyautey became friends and, due to her knowledge of Islam and Arabic, she became a liaison between him and the local Arabic people.^[5] Although details are unclear, it is generally accepted that Eberhardt also engaged in espionage for Lyautey.^[38] Concerned about a powerful marabout in the Atlas Mountains, Lyautey sent her to meet with him in 1904.^[39]

Eberhardt's health reportedly declined during her final years; she lost her teeth, her skin was sallow and she probably had syphillis.^[40] At the marabout's zawiya, Eberhardt was weakened by fever. She returned to Aïn Sefra, and was treated at the military hospital. She left the hospital against medical advice^[41] and asked Ehnni, whom she had been separated from for several months, to join her.^[5] Reunited on 20 October 1904, they rented a small mud house. The following day, a flash flood struck the area;^[41] Eberhardt was killed and Ehnni survived.^[8] Lyautey buried Eberhardt in Aïn Sefra and had a marble tombstone, engraved with her adopted name in Arabic and her birth name in French, placed on her grave.^[42][43]

Legacy

At the time of her death, Eberhardt's possessions included several of her unpublished manuscripts. Barrucand collected them, although many were water-logged and damaged. After reconstructing them (substituting his own words where the originals were too damaged to decipher), he began to publish her work.^[5] The first posthumous story, "Dans l'Ombre Chaude de l'Islam" ("In the Warm Shadow of Islam") received critical acclaim when it was published in 1906. A street was named after Eberhardt in Béchar and another in Algiers.^[43] She was posthumously seen as an advocate of decolonisation; according to Hedi Abdel-Jaouad in Yale French Studies, her work may have begun the decolonisation of North Africa.^[44] However, Eberhardt's relationship with Lyautey has triggered discussion by modern historians about her complicity in colonialism.^[5]

In 1954 author and explorer Cecily Mackworth published the biography The Destiny of Isabelle Eberhardt after following Eberhardt's routes in Algeria and the Sahara. The book inspired Paul Bowles to translate some of Eberhardt's writings into English.^[45] Novelist William Bayer published Visions Of Isabelle, a fictionalised 1976 account of her life.^[46] In 1981 Timberlake Wertenbaker premiered New Anatomies, a play about Eberhardt.^[15][47]

She has been portrayed in two films. Leslie Thornton directed a 1988 biography, There Was An Unseen Cloud Moving, with seven amateur actresses playing Eberhardt. Ian Pringle directed Isabelle Eberhardt, starring Mathilda May, in 1991.^[48]

In 1998 John Berger and Nella Bielski published Isabelle: A Story in Shots, a screenplay based on Eberhardt's life.^[49] Missy Mazzoli composed an opera, Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt, in 2012.^[50]

Works

References

Bibliography

Further reading

• Lorcin, Patricia M. E. (2012). Historicizing Colonial Nostalgia : European Women's Narratives of Algeria and Kenya 1900–Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-33865-4. 
• Smith, Patti (1994). Early Work:1970–1979. New York City: W.W. Norton and Company. ISBN 978-0-393-31301-7.