Born to Russian emigres and brought up in an atmosphere of intellectual and aristocratic anachism, in her short life Isabelle Eberhardt (1877-1904) came to be known as the ultimate enigma and a representative of everything that seemed dangerous in 19th century society. She was a transvestite and sensualist, an experienced drug-taker and a transgressor of boundaries: a European reborn as a desert Arab and devout Muslim, a woman who reinvented herself as a man, wandering the Sahara on horseback.