The vision of the harem in the prose of European travellers: between seduction and rejection. The case special of Aurora Bertrana (1892-1974)
Abstract
Due to the stereotypes spread by Orientalism, harems turned into a symbol of Traditional Oriental Culture, synonymous of sensuality and sexual debauchery. Travelers as Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, Olympe Audouard, Carla Serena, Ida Hahn or the Catalan writer Aurora Bertrana became authentic experts about life in harems and provided us, through their travel books, with a view of Muslim women which subscribes, contrasts or complements that provided by men's gaze. This article recovers the voices of women travellers who belong to different European nationalities. They travelled to culturally Oriental countries, in a temporal range from the 1840s to the 1930s, without it being an obstacle to submit reviews and parallel evidence.
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