Fadhila El Farouk, Fadhila Melkemi’s pen name, is an Algerian novelist, poet, and journalist of Amazigh origins. She was born in Batna to a Berber family and grew up in Constantine in the eastern region of Algeria. After studying medicine for two years at the University of Batna, El Farouk returned to Constantine to join the Institute of Literature. While at university, she worked as an assistant journalist for An Nasr newspaper and later as journalist at the Hayat newspaper in Constantine. Two years after graduation, in 1995, El Farouk moved to Beirut which had just come out of a bloody civil war. She joined Al Kifah Al Arabi newspaper for a year. In 1997, she published her first literary work, a collection of short stories entitled Lahdhah Lʾikhtilas Al Hob and Other Stories (A Moment of Stolen Love) followed by her first novel Mizadj Murahiqa (A Teenager’s Mood) in 1999. El Farouk’s novel, Taʾ Al Khajal (Feminine Shame), is one of her best, and most controversial works. It focuses on gender relations and rape against Algerian women during the Black Decade of the 1990s and condemns sexual violence in Arab societies. The novel was translated into French and Spanish and was widely acclaimed by critics.