Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys (National Endowment for the Humanities Award): Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood

"I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco..." So begins Fatima Mernissi in the exotic and rich 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, deprived of access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer imagination. This book is the provocative story of a girl confronting the mysteries of time and place, gender and sex in the recent Muslim world.--Back cover.