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The Swiss explorer who broke ground for women travel writers

Published on 03/03/2019

Explorer Isabelle Eberhardt paved the way for Swiss women to enter journalism and travel writing, but few know her story. An exhibit underway in Geneva aims to change that. “With one eye, observe the outside world, with the other, look deep inside yourself.” That sentence penned by the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani captures the essence of Eberhardt, who signed her dispatches with a simple “I”. That lone letter stands at the bottom of a love letter to her husband Slimène Ehni.  She wrote to him in French, “I embrace you with all my heart that is yours…” then continued in Arabic: “… in this world and for eternity”. The two languages that blend into each other in superb calligraphy reveal the rich cultural identity of this multilingual Swiss woman, born in 1877, who at the age of 20 left Geneva to settle in Algeria. She died there at 27, swept away in a river flood. Dressed as a man Eberhardt, a daring writer and adventurer, often dressed as a man. It was a choice that …