The Oblivion Seekers

Isabelle Eberhardt was an unusual woman, and we're fortunate to glimpse her unique meld of European angst and Algerian verve. We're equally lucky for Paul Bowles's sympathetic, robust biography that precedes Eberhardt's 13 short stories. Born in Switzerland in 1877 and dead by 1904 in Algeria, Eberhardt spent her childhood dressed as a boy and her short adulthood living a journalist's life in Africa, full of luck and illness, passion and melancholy. From that intricate mix, her stories set in the dusty heat of Algerian villages breathe and sigh and radiate the culture and conflicts of her chosen home.