Assia Djebar is also the author of several novels and a play. Her novel Fantasia, an Algerian Cavalcade won the Franco-Arab Friendship Prize and she has written and directed two feature-length films: La nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua, which won first prize at the Venice Festival, and La zerda et les chants de l'oubli. Djebar is director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Louisiana State University.Marjolijn de Jager has published numerous translations of literary works.Clarisse Zimra is Associate Professor of English in Modern Literary Theory and Criticism and Comparative Literature at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Algerian-born writer and filmmaker Djebar... makes her American debut with a collection offering memorable portraits of Arabic women in a time of change. Spanning the years 1958 to 1979, a period when Algeria fought a bitter war of independence from France and experienced a socialist revolution, Djebar's stories are intended to be 'the voice of all the women they've kept walled in' in Islamic society.... As much a critique as a picture of [this] society, Djebar's debut―plus its informative afterword―is an elegant and evocative introduction to a too little-known world." —Kirkus Reviews"A vivid and poignant picture of what goes on behind the veils imposed by Algeria's Islamic society." —Choice"Anyone into postcolonial fiction won't find better alternatives, even on a sunny day, than reading Djebar." —Voice Literary Supplement