Editors Reads Verdict
Mernissi at her most accessible and provocative — a cross-cultural feminist argument about fantasy, power, and the Orientalist imagination, written with her characteristic combination of scholarship and personal warmth.
What We Loved
- Accessible and engaging — Mernissi's best popular writing
- The cultural analysis is sharp and original
- Amusing and illuminating comparisons between Western and Eastern images of women
Minor Drawbacks
- Some generalisations inevitable in the format
- Better as introduction to Mernissi than as comprehensive argument
Key Takeaways
- → Western harem fantasies as a form of Western anxiety, not Eastern reality
- → Scheherazade as a symbol of female intelligence and power in Islamic tradition
- → The difference between how Eastern and Western cultures imagine female power
| Author | Fatema Mernissi |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Washington Square Press |
| Pages | 256 |
| Published | January 1, 2001 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Non-Fiction, Cultural Studies, Feminism |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Readers of Dreams of Trespass or anyone interested in cross-cultural feminist perspectives on Islam |
Who is Scheherazade? In the Thousand and One Nights, she is a woman of extraordinary intelligence who saves her own life through the power of narrative — night after night, holding the sultan captive with stories he cannot bear to stop listening to. She is clever, resourceful, and ultimately triumphant. This is the Scheherazade of the Islamic tradition.
But in Western paintings, operas, and popular culture, Scheherazade is a passive beauty lounging in a harem — an object of desire rather than an agent of survival. Fatema Mernissi’s argument in Scheherazade Goes West is that this transformation reveals more about Western anxieties than about any Eastern reality: the Western harem fantasy is a projection, a way of imagining a safely contained female sexuality that Western culture cannot accommodate in its own terms.
Mernissi ranges widely — through Matisse’s odalisques, Verdi’s operas, the Romantic Orientalists, and the cultural history of the European femme fatale — with her characteristic combination of scholarly rigour and personal voice. She is funny, she is pointed, and she is consistently illuminating. Scheherazade Goes West is perhaps the most accessible entry point to her thinking, and it works as both feminist cultural criticism and cross-cultural adventure.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Scheherazade Goes West" about?
Fatema Mernissi explores the different versions of Scheherazade that Western and Eastern cultures have created — arguing that the Western harem fantasy reveals more about Western fears than about Eastern reality.
Who should read "Scheherazade Goes West"?
Readers of Dreams of Trespass or anyone interested in cross-cultural feminist perspectives on Islam
What are the key takeaways from "Scheherazade Goes West"?
Western harem fantasies as a form of Western anxiety, not Eastern reality Scheherazade as a symbol of female intelligence and power in Islamic tradition The difference between how Eastern and Western cultures imagine female power
Is "Scheherazade Goes West" worth reading?
Mernissi at her most accessible and provocative — a cross-cultural feminist argument about fantasy, power, and the Orientalist imagination, written with her characteristic combination of scholarship and personal warmth.
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