Renowned writer and filmmaker Assia Djebar was born and raised in Algeria. She authored several novels, including the critically lauded So Vast the Prison and Algerian White. She has won several awards for her work, including the prestigious International Neustadt Prize for Literature.

Marjolijn de Jager, PhD, is the translator of Djebar’s Algerian White and Women of Algiers in Their Apartment, which was honored by the American Literary Translators Association. She teaches at the Center for Foreign Languages and Translation at New York University.