Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904)

Isabelle Eberhardt was born in Geneva, Switzerland to an aristocratic Baltic German mother, Nathalie Eberhardt de Moerder, and a Russian father, Alexandre Trophimowsky, a tutor and anarchist. The family lived a reclusive life in a villa on the outskirts of the city. Isabelle was educated at home by her father and became fluent in French, Russian, German, and Italian; she also learned Latin, Greek, and Arabic. She often dressed in male attire and was free to pursue boyish activities. In 1895, as a teenager, she published her first short story under a male pseudonym. She developed a great interest in North Africa, and moved with her mother to Algeria in 1897. There she dressed as a man, eventually adopting the name Si Mahmoud Saadi. In this guise, she traveled widely on horseback in the Maghreb (northwestern Africa) and visited places that were otherwise forbidden to women. Her unconventional behavior made her an outcast among European settlers in Algeria and the French administration, which considered her to be a spy or an agitator. In 1901, the French administration ordered her to leave the country, but she was allowed to return to Algeria the following year after marrying Slimane Ehnni, a soldier. Following her return, Isabelle wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, including a French-language Algerian paper of Victor Barrucand. She moved to Aïn Séfra, where in 1904, at the age of 27, she was killed by a flash flood.

In 1906, Barrucand began publishing her remaining manuscripts, which received critical acclaim. Her life has been the subject of several works, including the 1991 film Isabelle Eberhardt.