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Malika Mokeddem (b. October 5, 1949) was born in Kenadsa in the Algerian  desert. Raised by a father who considered women as secondary citizens and a mother who believed in maintaining the tradition of servitude for women, and coming from a fundamentalist village, she nevertheless managed to study medicine in Algeria and France. In 1977, she established herself in Montpellier in order to practice nephrology.

In 1985 she stopped working as a doctor in order to concentrate on her writing. For her first novel, Les Hommes qui marchent, published in 1990, she won the Prix Littré, the collective prize at Chambéry for a first novel, and the prize from the Noureddine Aba foundation in Algeria. She received the African Mediteranean prize ADELF for her second novel, Le Siècle des Sauterelles (Ramsay, 1992), and the Mediterranean prize in Perpignan for L'Interdite (Grasset, 1993). Her career has continued to prosper with Des rêves et des assassins (Grasset, 1995), N'zid (Grasset, 2001), La transe des insoumis (Grasset, 2003), Mes hommes (Grasset, 2005), Je dois tout à ton oubli (Grasset, 2008)