Yamina Mechakra

Yamina Mechakra was born in Meskiana in the high plains of the Chaoui country. Trained as a medical doctor and child psychiatrist at the University of Algiers, she spent decades tending to traumatized children in Algerian hospitals while pouring her visionary sensitivity into literature.

In 1979, she published 'La Grotte éclatée' (The Shattered Cave), recounting the story of a young female nurse in an ALN cave hospital in the Aurès that is destroyed by French bombardments. Prefaced enthusiastically by Kateb Yacine, who hailed her as a brilliant new force, her poetic prose remains an immortal landmark of feminine Algerian literature.