Salme, the daughter of the Sultan of Oman and Zanzibar and a Circassian slave, secretly left Zanzibar in 1866 to marry the Hamburg merchant Heinrich Ruete, following him to his homeland. When her memoirs were published in 1886, they attracted significant attention and were quickly translated into several languages. Salme recounts the exotic and turbulent daily life in the Sultan's palace and harem, detailing the intrigues within the palace and their implications for the Sultanate amid the aggressive colonial policies of Bismarck and England. No contemporary colonial archive or documentation could illuminate the conditions and events that Emily Ruete, born Salme, a princess of Oman and Zanzibar, reveals to the reader. Estranged from her family during her lifetime, Emily Ruete is now commemorated in a room dedicated to her at the Palace Museum in Zanzibar, while she rests in Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. These poignant memoirs convey her enduring sense of rootlessness and longing for her homeland until her death.
Emily Ruete Poradie kníh (chronologicky)
30. august 1844 – 29. február 1924
Emily Ruete, narodená ako princezná Sayyida Salme zo Zanzibaru a Ománu, sa preslávila ako autorka, ktorá vo svojom diele skúmala kultúrne stretávanie a osobnú slobodu. Jej písanie sa vyznačuje prenikavým pohľadom na stret medzi tradičným islamským svetom a modernizujúcou sa Európou. Prostredníctvom svojich literárnych diel ponúka jedinečný vhľad do života ženy, ktorá sa odvážila prekročiť spoločenské normy svojej doby. Jej texty sú cenným svedectvom o hľadaní identity a nezávislosti v komplexnom svete.

