Malika Mokeddem is an Algerian immigrant who has lived most of her life in France. A medical doctor as well as a writer, she worked in Montpellier as a general practitioner focusing on the health needs of the immigrant North African community until recently, when death threats forced her to close her clinic. She now works several days a week at a nephrology clinic and devotes the rest of her time to writing. She is the author of numerous books, including two books translated and available in Bison Books editions: The Forbidden Woman and Century of Locusts.
Laura Rice is a professor of English at Oregon State University and Karim Hamdy is the director of the Center for Maghrib Studies in Tunis. They are translators of Mokeddem’s Century of Locusts. Rice has also written about Malika Mokeddem in her book Of Irony and Empire: Islam, the West, and the Transcultural Invention of Africa.