Dreams of Trespass: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Arabian Harem

Valerie: This book is repetitive and drawn out which detracted from its charm and failed to hold my interest. There are moments when it is illuminating.

United States on May 07, 2023

Neelam: A delightful read! I liked the narrative's consistency in portraying what harem life consists from the eyes of a young adolescent girl....amusing but laden with such wisdom!

India on Sep 01, 2021

dumbApp: Wonderful book, it offers many perspectives, triumphs women, feminist outlook, great innocence, Fatima wrote generously, however, many things one wouldn't agree with, as everything else, but you would be surprised how a great storyteller the author, and the women in the Harem were. I recommend!

Spain on Feb 06, 2020

Client d'Amazon: RAS

France on Jan 21, 2019

Пончик: 邦題『ハーレムの少女ファティマ』です。ベールで覆われたイスラム女性のありのままの生活や考え方が、美しい童話のような文章で描かれています。女性ならではの苦労や男性に抑圧されたイスラム社会の問題点などがふんだんに織り込まれています。物語としてもクウォリティーが高く、スラスラ読めます。イスラム教やムスリマの女性の生活に興味のある方全員にオススメします。

Japan on Dec 29, 2018

Design Think: Anyone interested in Gender relations in the Muslim world should read this beautifully, brilliantly depicted description of a wealthy woman’s girlhood in Fes, during the pre-reform era.

But it is an absolute must for anyone visiting Morocco, especially Fes, and especially women travelers.

It puts a new twist on the life of women, who are still far too often behind closed doors in Moroccan culture, for those traveling there. It is a beautiful, disturbing, and fascinating window into the recent past of an invisible part of Moroccan society that it is very hard to get elsewhere. And it also holds truths and insight for women everywhere, in all times.

(Plus, on a practical note. it tries to explain to explain the complexities of the hamam experience, so that traveling women might have a very distant hope of figuring it out without bungling everything up entirely, and without knowing Arabic. But really, that is a quite remote hope, even with her beautiful depiction of the details of it.)

United States on Feb 28, 2018

Alexandra G.(Greece): A fantastic, very well written book.The fascinating memoirs of Fatima Mernissi's childhood, together with her extended family and relatives, living in a "domestic harem", are so charmingly narrated. The book is originally written in English, although the author is an Arabic native speaker.Fatima Mernissi's writing is like a liquid velvet flowing through the pages of her book, scented with Moroccan orange and lemon-tree blossom.If you wish to enjoy the above book, take your time, choose a comfortable armchair, far from noise, fly to 1940's Morocco and enter the author's harem..Here is her mother's intriguing point of view about happiness (page 80) : "When I asked her(her mother)how much happiness she had in her life, she said that it varied accordingly to the days. Some days she had 5%,others(...)100%". I wished to congratulate Fatima Mernissi for her book and for the nostalgic read she offered to me. I felt deeply sorry when I saw that she died last year, at the age of 75.

United States on Sep 23, 2016

lucille Friesen King-Edwards: I read this book years ago and loved it so much I gave away my copy only to miss it recently so another purchase. Insightful about the harem life of one family, both tender and critical. One is given the contrast of the grandmother in the country whose life is free. The dynamic between the two kinds of life a woman in Morocco might lead is thought-provoking. I enjoyed the tenderness among the women in the harem. It reminded me a bit of the 18-19th century English country house novels where women spent most of their time with each other and taking care of each other. This is a far cry from the romantic notions of the Orientalist painters, just an average family in Morocco of that time.

Canada on May 30, 2016

Adam Katzman: Though the book jacket and title suggest this is an exotic and lurid look into the hot, steamy and abusive world of Middle Eastern brothel life it is actually a humane portrait of familial relations within the confines of a harem (quite different than its reputation would suggest) and how they operate under foreign occupation. Fatima Mernissi understands the misconceptions about female domesticity-within Morocco specifically and the Middle East in general-and proceeds to cordially deconstruct and undermine western stereotypes at book's length. From the affectionate father that attempts to accommodate Mernissi's mother while both suffer under the constraints of patriarchy (a problem not uniquely Middle Eastern) to the private feminine community behind harem walls to the varied interaction with popular culture both local and foreign, this book doesn't offer pat indictments of anything, but, in a way that mirrors the harem, creates a space in which discourse can operate. The Harem is partly presented as a sacred space, one in which the Western gaze of the colonizer and the general gaze of the male cannot penetrate at will. Despite notions to the contrary, the activity that takes...

United States on Dec 02, 2011

Lindsey: I was rather surprised to see a couple reviewers blasting Mernissi for writing that seemingly "attacks the religion of Islam," and for misusing the term "harem." I'm quite sure our author knows exactly what a harem is, and I'm sure authors of MEMOIRS are more than welcome to display their personal thoughts, feelings, and opinions. This aside, Mernissi does not attack any religious institution in her book. She simply writes of her own mental progression, and the diverse influences on that progression throughout her youth. Do not read this book expecting political fireworks or a grand emotional saga. If those styles seem better suited for you, I recommend Savushun. This novel is a much gentler, more subtle investigation of the culture through the eyes of a young girl who is trying to make sense of her world. I find the innocence of this novel very endearing, and feel that the understated messages make this book a more powerful read than most memoirs. I hope to read this novel with my English students this year.

United States on Aug 02, 2011