Mustapha Benfodil was born in 1968 in Relizane, in western Algeria. He is a novelist and playwright. His books include Zarta (Editions Barzakh, 2000), Les Bavardages du Seul (Barzakh, 2003; prize for the best novel at the first Algerian Festival of the Novel, 2004), and Archéologie du chaos [amoureux] (Barzakh, 2007; published in France by Al Dante, 2012), Body Writing (Editions Barzakh, 2018), and Alger, Journal Intense (Edition Macula - France, 2019). 

He is also the author of more than ten plays, including Clandestinopolis (2006); Les Borgnes (2009); De mon hublot utérin je te salue humanité et te dis blablabla (2011); and Le Point de Vue de la Mort (End/Igné – 2013) . 

He also released a collection of poems in England, entitled Cocktail Kafkaine, with Hesterglock Press – 2018 (translated by John Ford).

Benfodil resides in Algiers and works as a reporter at the Algerian daily newspaper El Watan. He published his reporting on the war in Iraq in Les Six Derniers Jours de Baghdad. Journal d’un voyage de guerre (Editions Casbah, 2003).