Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar / Edition 1

by Emily Reute

Overview

Born a princess Sayyida on the African spice island of Zanzibar, Emily Ruete was brought up in a harem in the Sultan's palace, naturalized as a German through marriage, and then manipulated by both Germans and British in their efforts to gain control over the island. Her engrossing memoirs, set against a backdrop of political intrigue in the great age of European colonialism, offer a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century Arab and African life, not only in the palace, but in the city and plantations as well. They also explore relationships within her family and to the Arab and black communities, children's education, and the role of women in a polygamous society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558760073
Publisher:	Wiener, Markus Publishers, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/19/2017
Series:	Topics in World History
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Emily Ruete, author, was born Sayyida, Princess of Zanzibar and Oman. In this autobiography, she provides a comparison between a woman's life in Muslim society and the conditions within the nineteenth-century European bourgeoisie.

Patricia Romero, editor, of Towson State University, is author of Sylvia Pankhurst: Portrait of a Radical and Lamu: History, Society, and Family in an East African Port City (also available from Markus Wiener).

Editorial Reviews

Ruete could be the subject of a thrilling romance. As Romero ( Life Histories of African Women ) explains, she was born in 1840 as Salme, princess of Oman and Zanzibar, and grew up privy to the machinations of her father's harem and of her scores of siblings. Following her father the sultan's death in 1856, Salme participated in one brother's unsuccessful coup to wrest the throne from another. Despite strictures confining Islamic women, she trysted with a German who is thought to have impregnated her, fled to Germany where she converted to Christianity, changed her name, married her lover, bore three children and was soon widowed. Ruete relates few of these escapades; instead she provides a disingenuous account of harmonious life at the palace. Despite the profusion of concubines, Ruete claims that Arabs predominantly practice monogamy; her father is a beneficent king--although Romero states that he attained power by murdering a cousin. The disparity between introduction and text, the latter translated from the German, generates a peculiarly successful tension, enhanced by carefully recorded details of court life. Illustrations not seen by PW . (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly