Albert Memmi was born in 1920 in Tunisia, when it was a French protectorate. He grew up speaking Tunisian Judeo-Arabic and French, and went on to be educated at the University of Algiers and the Sorbonne in Paris. During the Second World War, he was imprisoned in a forced labour camp, from which he later escaped. A supporter of Tunisian independence, he later left the country for France, citing increasing marginalisation due to both his French education and his Jewish identity. He published several widely acclaimed novels as well as major works on racism and Judaism. He died in France in 2020.

Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer, Booker Prize winner, political activist and Nobel Laureate. Active in the anti-apartheid movement as a member of the ANC — a proscribed organisation at the time — her books were banned in her home country.

Jean-Paul Sartre was a Nobel Prize winner, playwright and philosopher. He was a leading public intellectual for much of the twentieth century, and was one of the key figures in the development of existentialism and phenomenology. During the war in Algeria, Sartre was a vocal supporter of the FLN.