Najwa Ben Shatwan earned her PhD in Humanities in Italy, and is an assistant lecturer in Beghazi University.

She is the author of: The Horses’ Hair (2015) and Orange Content (2008), and “Slave Pens” (2016). Her other publications include: The Water in Snarti, Conference publications, 2002, Stories not for men (collection of stories), Arab Civilization House - Cairo 2003, The Coat (play), UAE Ministry of Information and Culture, 2003, General Culture Council - Libya, 2006, The Queen (Group of Stories), General Culture Council - Libya, 2008, Grandma Salha (Fiction Collection), Dar Al Khayyal 2013 and Catalog of a Private Life (collection of stories) – Dar Ithr, Saudi Arabia 2018.

Ben Shatwan was awarded many prizes; her theater play The Coat won the third prize in the 6th edition of the Sharjah Award for Arab Creativity in 2002, and in 2005, The Horses' Hair won the inaugural Sudanese al-Begrawiya Festival prize, in the same year that Khartoum was Capital of Arab Culture.

Ben Shatwan also won the Sharjah Festival Prize for Arab Innovation in the category of theater, and the Hay Festival Prize for the best 39 Arab writers for the year 2009. Ben Shatwan's Slave Pens was shortlisted for the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF)