New Books Review

Harem Girl eBook and paperback

A sexy adult book by M. Saalih

Harem Girl - a romantic story told through the eyes of a young slave girl about her life and experiences as a harem girl in an Arabian sheik's harem. Revealingly written, no wonder this style of literotica was once banned...

Unquestionably written after considerable background research into Middle East harems and quite possibly from first hand experience of harems. It is hard to tell which. Perhaps a combination of the two.
Without question it is an engaging and excellent example of the art of writing literotica.

The following extract is from the introduction, (although a little long and boring, do not be put off by it, the rest of the book is far from boring), shows how thorough her research was and sets the background for a fine literotica story. If you a looking for erotic stories, do not miss this one! It sizzles.

HISTORY OF HAREMS — from the introduction to the book Harem Girl

Inspiration to write this novel came from three sources: history, a tour to the Moorish Alhambra palace in Spain, and the imagined memoirs of a harem girl. It is kept as true as possible to the historical setting and overlaid and embellished with the memoirs of Sapphira the harem girl.
To write that journal, that later inspired the book Harem Girl, a young Arab woman masqueraded her way into a sheik's harem. She managed this by a deceitful ruse involving a friend of her husband, who agreed to present her as one of his slaves and send her to a harem in exchange for another girl. Four months later the sheik would reverse the exchange.

Slavery was widely practiced at the turn of the century, and I quote from two letters sent by Spanish priests to the Cardinal of Madrid giving account of pirate raids in the Philippines:

Abdulla then gave the town of Ilo-Ilo over to organized loot. Detachments of Moros looted the churches and rounded up the fleeing women and children. Krismen passed from house to house down narrow streets, ferreting out the frightened women.
In the plaza of the ruined town, the plunder was collected in a great pile. White-skinned Spanish women mingled with brown Visayan girls in the long line assembled for the inspection of Abdulla. The fairest of the women were selected for the harems of Sulu — the male survivors of the conflict were put to the “kris” (sword).

Again, in a later letter describing another incident:

When Tagal wearied of the slaughter and raised his hand to turn the prows of the pirate vessels to the south again, 650 captives lay trussed like chickens in the hold.
One hundred miles from Jolo, a Spanish fleet, operating from the base at Zamboanga, intercepted the victorious Tagal as he rounded the treacherous angle of rough water at Puenta Flecha. Hampered by the hundreds of captives in the holds, the garays of Tagal were slow and unwieldy, and in the naval engagement that followed the Moros suffered a crushing defeat. Three hundred Moros, including Tagal, were killed and 120 captives were set free. Tagal jettisoned many of the captives as the tide of battle turned against him, and the sharks at Puenta Flecha fed well on the bound bodies of Christian slave girls bound for the harems of Jolo.

At the time of the journal, Western nations had for many years abolished slavery and declared it illegal, but in the Middle East, it was a long held practice that continued well after prohibition laws were passed. This was due largely to the remote location, sparse population, the inhospitable terrain where the practice flourished, and the conflict in ideology between East and West. Additionally, Western governments were in no mood to upset the delicate commercial arrangements between the owners of the newfound oil of the Middle East, and their own commercial oil interests. It was not until 1935 that Somalia officially outlawed slavery, followed by Saudi Arabia in 1962—at the urging of President J.F. Kennedy—one hundred years later than the United States of America.

Our word “harem” is derived from the Arabic word “harim”—“sacred, forbidden place”, which in turn comes from the Arabic word “harama”—“he prohibited”. Now as then, it is a section of a house reserved for the women and children of the household, a quiet sanctum for the free—a gilded prison for the enslaved. Her narrative of course documents the latter.
The last officially sanctioned harem of record that I could find was that of King Abdul Aziz Ibn-Saud (1880 - 1953), the supreme ruler of Saudi Arabia. He had seventeen wives, four concubines and four slaves to satisfy his desire. He fathered forty-four sons and a similar number of daughters.

In her journal, which she called her ”Journaux Intimes”, she mentions many historical characters such as the Bey of Aqaba, Ibn-Saud and Sharif Hussein of Jeddah, and the towns and countries referred to all exist. And the hotel she stayed in, in 1925, the Maison Dorée on rue de Hollande in Tunis, is still open for business today, though mature and tired, eclipsed by the Hiltons and Holiday Inns of our time, but no doubt grand accommodation in her day. These are just some of the facts that lend credence to the authenticity of her account.

In what period is the novel set? When was her journal supposedly written? Many clues are scattered throughout the text: Reference to Burton’s translation, Tales of the Arabian Nights, 1001 Nights, places the journal start after 1888, mention of the Suez Canal, officially opened in 1876, and the use of the telegraph to send messages, would support this. But later in the book, mention of La Grippe, the worldwide Spanish Flu epidemic, clearly places the start of her journal in the year 1900 when she is fourteen years old, and ends in 1926 when she is forty

On the Erotic Art and Orientalist Picture Gallery page on this site you will find thumbnails linking to some orientalist and erotic harem and slavery pictures that inspired the book.

If you are looking for a book about the romance and customs of harems and life as harem girls in Middle East Arabian harems, then Harem Girl is a must read. It is not to be missed if your literotica interest is romantic and erotic stories with well told story lines or if you have read and enjoyed any of The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, and Beauty's Release by A. N. Roquelaure ( Anne Rice).

2012-04-19

New Books Review

Harem Girl eBook and paperback

A sexy adult book by M. Saalih

Harem Girl - a romantic story told through the eyes of a young slave girl about her life and experiences as a harem girl in an Arabian sheik's harem. Revealingly written, no wonder this style of literotica was once banned...

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