Summary
The article’s central theme is the relation of the Swiss author Annemarie Schwarzenbach to the Orient, and in particular to Persia, starting from her novel Das glückliche Tal. This research subject is important and relevant in the light of the contemporary debate about the connection between gender issues and Orientalism. The fact that the female and lesbian writer Schwarzenbach travelled to the Orient several times and that she dealt with her experiences in this region by writing about them, makes her a very interesting case study in this context. The article seeks specific answers to the questions whether Schwarzenbach as a homosexual woman skirts the orientalist discourse, which is usually considered to be exclusively male and heterosexual, or whether she confirms and expands it at the same time by adding the aspects of femininity and homosexuality. After a thorough analysis it becomes clear that the latter is the case. Several orientalist motifs can be found in Schwarzenbach’s novel Das glückliche Tal: the dichotomy between East and West and the representations of the Orient as paradisiacal homeland on the one hand and as dark land of disorientation on the other hand. Her outsider status in society as a woman and a homosexual does not — in contradiction to the prevailing view — undermine the orientalist discourse. On the contrary, it is argued that it fits perfectly in the whole framework of orientalist motifs that draw her to the Orient.