Dreams of Trespass - by Fatima Mernissi (Paperback)

About the Book

" I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco... So begins Fatima Mernissi in this exotic and rich narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. In Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi""

Book Synopsis

This "wonderful and enchanting" memoir tells the revelatory true story of one Muslim girl's life in her family's French Moroccan harem, set against the backdrop of World War II (The New York Times Book Review).

"I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco . . . "
So begins Fatima Mernissi in this illuminating narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. In Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi weaves her own memories with the dreams and memories of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her youth -- women who, without access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer imagination.

A beautifully written account of a girl confronting the mysteries of time and place, gender and sex, Dreams of Trespass illuminates what it was like to be a modern Muslim woman in a place steeped in tradition.

Review Quotes

"[Mernissi] creates a necklace of tales as delightful as Scheherazade's."--Elle

"A remarkable book...vits good humor is unwavering; it tempers judgmentalism with understanding; and it provides a vivid portrait of a world that most Westerners can scarcely comprehend."--Washington Post Book World

"Wonderful and enchanting.... Mernissi brings this vanished world to life."--New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Fatema Mernissi teaches sociology at University Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco. She is the author of more than eight books, including Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood, Scheherazade Goes West, The Veil and the Male Elite, and Beyond the Veil.