Zehira Houfani
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M'Kira
Zehira Houfani | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 16, 1952 M'Kira |
| Website | https://zehira-houfani.com/ |
Zehira Houfani-Berfas (Arabic: زهيرة حوفاني برفاس; born September 16, 1952) is an Algerian French-language writer living in Canada. She may be the first woman to publish a detective novel in Algeria.[1]
Zehira Houfani was born on September 16, 1952 in M'Kira, Algeria.[2] Her first novel was Les Pirates du désert (Pirates of the Desert) (1986), set in Tamanrasset in southern Algeria and written in the style of hard-boiled detective authors Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.[3] She abandoned detective fiction during the Algerian Civil War.[1]
She moved to Canada in 1994.[2] She worked as a peace activist, visiting Iraq to document civilian casualties during the Iraq War and demanding the resignation of Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.[4][5]
