Stories and journal notes by an extraordinary young woman--adventurer and traveler, Arabic scholar, Sufi mystic and adept of the Djillala cult.-Not long before her death Isabelle Eberhardt wrote: -No one ever lived more from day to day or was more dependent upon chance. It is the inescapable chain of events that has brought me to this point, rather than I who have caused these things to happen.- Her life seems haphazard, at the mercy of caprice, but her writings prove otherwise. She did not make decisions; she was impelled to take action. Her nature combined an extraordinary singlness of purpose and an equally powerful nostalgia for the unattainable.- --Paul Bowles, preface.-One of the strangest human documents that a woman has given the world.- --Cecily Mackworth, I Came Out of FranceIsabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) was an explorer who lived and traveled extensively throughout North Africa. She wrote of her travels in numerous books and French newspapers, including Nouvelles AlgeriennesAlgerian News] (1905), Dans lOmbre Chaude de lIslamIn the Hot Shade of Islam] (1906), and Les journaliersThe Day Laborers] (1922).Paul Bowles has taped and translated numerous strange legends and lively stories recounted by Mrabet: Love with a Few Hairs (novel), The Lemon (novel), The Boy Who Set Fire (stories), Harmless Poisons, Blameless Sins (stories), The Beach Cafe & Look & Move On (autobiography), and The Big Mirror (novella).