Memoirs of an Arabian Princess

Originally published in 1888, this is the first known autobiography of an Arabian woman, and the only known autobiography of an Arabian princess. Set in mid-nineteenth century Zanzibar, where Arab and African cultures met, it provides a view no official account could possibly reveal, into the intrigues of court life, the struggles for political power, and the world of the harem. For the love of Heinrich Ruete, a young German consulate official, Princess Salme bint Said chose to forsake, at the risk of death, her privileged place in a Muslim society. In 1886 they fled to the West, where tragically, three years later he died. She remained in Germany with their three children, and there, in a characteristically lively style, wrote of her experience.