Who was Emily Ruete, alias Salme of Zanzibar? The Arabian princess who left her home in 1866 out of love for the Hamburg salesman Heinrich Ruete? The woman who took on a new name and a new religion, beginning a new life in Germany? The young widow who had to raise her three children alone in a foreign land? The pawn of political interests, caught up in Germany's scheming for the island of Zanzibar? These are the questions that Emily's children ask themselves to the very end: Said, Antonie and Rosalie. Their life lines run between the Orient and Occident, Islam and Christianity, royal heritage and bitter poverty, German discipline and unbridled exoticism – and lead directly into the catastrophic events of the 20th century.