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This article examines the autobiographical writings of Sarah Bernhardt and Fatima Rushdi as strategic acts of self-fashioning that articulate transnational modes of fin-de-siècle New Womanhood. Through a comparative analysis of Bernhardt’s  Ma Double Vie  and Rushdi’s memoirs, particularly  Fatima Rushdi bayn al-Hubb wal-Fann , the study explores how theatrical women performers employed life writing to craft public identities that challenged prevailing gender norms. Drawing on feminist theory, autobiography studies, and performance theory, the article argues that both figures used narrative self-construction to assert artistic agency and resist patriarchal constraints. Bernhardt’s flamboyant cosmopolitanism contrasts with Rushdi’s grounded nationalism, yet both converge in their symbolic use of cross-gender theatrical roles – Hamlet and Napoleon II – as vehicles of gender transgression. Positioned within the broader framework of celebrity culture and transnational feminism, their autobiographical narratives highlight how local and global discourses of modernity, resistance, and cultural reform intersect in women’s self-representations. By examining their life writings as performative acts, the article redefines autobiography not merely as personal recollection, but as a political medium for constructing feminist selves across borders. Ultimately, the study contributes to rethinking the New Woman archetype beyond Eurocentric paradigms, emphasizing how autobiographical performance enabled women like Bernhardt and Rushdi to renegotiate womanhood on their own terms.

Staging the Self: Life-Writings of Fatima Rushdi and Sarah Bernhardt as Emblems of Fin-de-Siècle New Womanhood