---
product_id: 2196325
title: "Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood"
brand: "fatima mernissiruth v. ward"
price: "€ 50.10"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 7
url: https://www.desertcart.pt/products/2196325-dreams-of-trespass-tales-of-a-harem-girlhood
store_origin: PT
region: Portugal
---

# Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

**Brand:** fatima mernissiruth v. ward
**Price:** € 50.10
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by fatima mernissiruth v. ward
- **How much does it cost?** € 50.10 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pt](https://www.desertcart.pt/products/2196325-dreams-of-trespass-tales-of-a-harem-girlhood)

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- fatima mernissiruth v. ward enthusiasts

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## Description

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

## Images

![Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81taduVQSOL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Woman’s Life Masterpiece
*by P***E on May 10, 2025*

I know very few memoirs by Muslim women, and this one, about a childhood in Fes in the 1940s, is especially valuable, as the writing is a delight in itself. What privileged access to the world of women in a traditional Moroccan household, and written with what elegant wryness and grace. The rituals, games, and secrets of women and children whose lives were unimaginably restricted. An inspiration!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great cultural context
*by L***Y on November 29, 2024*

Reading this book while traveling through Fes, Casablanca, Marrakech and southern Morocco was a really informative experience. It gave important historical and cultural context of the experience of women in Morocco that still have reverberations today though there is a lot more freedom for women in the larger cities. It addressed the tension between the old and the new - the traditional and the foreign really well. It also captured a burgeoning feminist awakening in a new generation of Moroccan girls and women.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fatima Mernissi's Alternate Spheres for Feminist Discourse
*by A***N on December 2, 2011*

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 place behind these walls can be read as feminist and in some cases radical. Thus, Mernissi is a feminist, but one that works within the context of Islam, endlessly reconstructing traditional patriarchal interpretations of the scripture with those women can assert agency in. Like many Arab Women Writers she walks a tricky line between humanistic portraits of brethren that combat Orientalist stereotypes while also, as per James Baldwin's phrasing, putting her people's business on the street. Her mother, deprived of formal education but smart as a whip, provides deep-seated ire at her status as a woman, but the book isn't a stark and depressing, black and white reduction of everything to her situation. Like all good literature, it's complicated. The book is rich, too, in non-western literary and cultural tradition as well, from Sheherezade to Om Khoultoum, showing that binaries between Western "civilization" and Eastern "primitivism" are false and destructively counterintuitive. Worth a look!

## Frequently Bought Together

- Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood
- The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca
- The Last Storytellers: Tales from the Heart of Morocco

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*Product available on Desertcart Portugal*
*Store origin: PT*
*Last updated: 2026-03-14*