Editing Isabelle Eberhardt (section)

=={{anchor|Relocation to North Africa}}Move to North Africa==
Sometime prior to 1894, Eberhardt began corresponding with Eugène Letord, a French officer stationed in the [[Sahara]] who had placed a newspaper advertisement for a [[pen pal]].{{sfn|Bodley|1968|p=143}}{{sfn|Abdel-Jaouad|1993|page=96}} Eberhardt asked him for every detail he could give her about life in the Sahara, also informing him of her dreams of escaping Geneva alongside her favourite sibling, Augustin. Letord encouraged the two of them to relocate to [[Annaba|Bône]], Algeria, where he could assist them in establishing a new life.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=24}} In a series of circumstances that remain unclear though involving financial debts and ties to Russian revolutionist groups with which he was affiliated, Augustin fled Geneva in 1894. Eberhardt probably assisted him initially but was unable to keep track of his whereabouts despite making constant inquiries.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=28, 29}} In November 1894 Eberhardt was informed by a letter that Augustin had joined the [[French Foreign Legion]] and was assigned to Algeria.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=31}} Though she was at first furious with Augustin's decision, Eberhardt's anger did not last;{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=32}} she asked him to send her a detailed diary of what he saw in North Africa.{{sfn|Chouiten|2012|pp=59–66}}

[[File:Isabelle Eberhardt 1895.jpg|thumb|180px|right|Eberhardt photographed by Louis David in "odds and ends" of Arabic clothing that David owned{{sfn|Stryker|2013|p=641}}|alt=A black and white photograph of a young woman, wearing an assortment of Arabic styled clothing]]

In 1895, Eberhardt published short stories in the journal ''La Nouvelle Revue Moderne'' under the pseudonym of Nicolas Podolinsky; "Infernalia" (her first published work) is about a medical student's physical attraction to a dead woman.{{sfn|Chouiten|2012|pp=59–66}} Later that year she published {{sic|"Vision du Moghreb"}} ({{langx|en|Vision of the [[Greater Maghreb|Maghreb]]}}),{{sfn|Chouiten|2012|pp=59–66}} a story about North African religious life.{{sfn|Chouiten|2012|pp=59–66}}{{sfn|Abdel-Jaouad|1993|page=96}} Eberhardt had "remarkable insight and knowledge" of North Africa{{sfn|Abdel-Jaouad|1993|page=96}} for someone acquainted with the region only through correspondence, and her writing had a strong [[Anti-imperialism|anti-colonial]] theme. Louis David, an Algerian-French photographer touring Switzerland who was intrigued by her work, met with her. After hearing of her desire to move to [[Algiers]], he offered to help her establish herself in Bône if she relocated there.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=35}}{{sfn|Bodley|1968|p=144}} In 1895, he took a photograph of Eberhardt wearing a sailor's uniform, which would become widely associated with her in later years.{{sfn|Stryker|2013|p=641}}{{sfn|Pears|2015|p=70}}

Eberhardt relocated to Bône with her mother in May 1897.{{sfn|Chouiten|2012|pp=59–66}}{{sfn|Abdel-Jaouad|1993|page=96}}{{sfn|Blanch|2010|p=252}} They initially lived with David and his wife, who both disapproved of the amount of time Eberhardt and her mother spent with Arabs. Eberhardt and her mother did not like the Davids' attitude, which was typical of European settlers in the area,{{sfn|Chouiten|2012|pp=59–66}} and later avoided the country's French residents, renting an Arabic-style house far from the European quarter. Eberhardt, aware that a Muslim woman could go out neither alone nor unveiled, dressed as a man in a [[burnous]] and turban.{{sfn|Bodley|1968|p=144}} She expanded on her previous studies of Arabic, and became fluent within a few months.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=40}} She and her mother converted to Islam. Mackworth writes that while Eberhardt was a "natural mystic", her conversion appeared to be largely for practical reasons, as it gave her greater acceptance among the Arabs. Eberhardt found it easy to accept Islam; Trophimowsky had brought her up as a [[fatalism|fatalist]] and Islam gave her fatalism a meaning. She embraced the Islamic concept that everything is predestined and the will of God.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=42}} Although Eberhardt largely devoted herself to the Muslim way of life, she frequently partook of marijuana and alcohol{{sfn|Bodley|1968|p=145}} and had many lovers.{{sfn|Waldman|1999|page=291}}{{sfn |Clancy-Smith|1994|p=245}}{{sfn|Blanch|2010|p=256}} According to a friend, Eberhardt "drank more than a Legionnaire, smoked more [[kief]] than a [[hashish]] addict and made love for the love of making love".{{sfn|Blanch|2010|p=266}} She was heterosexual, but often treated sexual intercourse as impersonal.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1989/05/21/isabelle-of-algeria/f1e32fc5-fe47-4d67-b1f4-f634bf331a4e/ |title=Isabelle of Algeria |last=Auchincloss |first=Eve |date=21 May 1989 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=3 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161113123156/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1989/05/21/isabelle-of-algeria/f1e32fc5-fe47-4d67-b1f4-f634bf331a4e/ |archive-date=13 November 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> The reason for her Arabic companions' tolerance of her lifestyle has been debated by biographers. According to Mackworth, the "delicate courtesy of the Arabs" led them to treat Eberhardt [[male privilege|as a man]] because she wished to live as one.{{sfn|Waldman|1999|page=291}} Eberhardt's behaviour made her an outcast with the French settlers and the [[French Algeria#Government and administration|colonial administration]], who watched her closely.{{sfn|Abdel-Jaouad|1993|page=109}} Seeing no reason why a woman would choose the company of impoverished Arabs over her fellow Europeans, they eventually concluded she must be an English agent, sent to stir up resentment towards the French.{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=47}}

Eberhardt began to write stories, including the first draft of her novel ''Trimardeur'' ({{langx|en|Vagabond}}). Her story ''Yasmina'', about a young [[Bedouin]] woman who falls in love with a French officer and the "tragedy this impossible love brings into her life",{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=40}} was published in a local French newspaper.{{sfn|Bodley|1968|p=144}}{{sfn|Blanch|2010|p=252}} Her mother, who had been suffering from heart problems, died in November 1897 of a heart attack, and was buried under the name of Fatma Mannoubia.{{sfn|Bodley|1968|p=145}}{{sfn|Blanch|2010|p=253}}{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=43–44}} Eberhardt was grief-stricken. Trophimowsky, who had been summoned when his partner's health had deteriorated but arrived after her death, showed no sympathy towards Eberhardt. When she told him she desperately wanted to die and rejoin her mother, he responded by calmly offering her his revolver, which she declined.{{sfn|Blanch|2010|p=253}}{{sfn|Mackworth|1977|p=44}}