Kuchuk Hanem (fl. 1850-1870) was a famed beauty and Ghawazee dancer of Esna, mentioned in two unrelated nineteenth-century accounts of travel to Egypt, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert and the American adventurer George William Curtis.
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Louise Colet, a one-time mistress of Flaubert, is said to have sought out the aging dancer on a trip to Egypt at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal, in order to report back to Flaubert the ravages that time had wrought on the woman he so admired.
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It seems certain that she was also an influence on George William Curtis, suggesting that she was one of the most sought-after entertainers in Upper Egypt during the colonial period.