Saïd Khatibi is a novelist, travel writer, translator, and journalist born in 1984 in Bou Saâda, Algeria. He currently lives in Slovenia. He writes in Arabic and French and translates between both. His novel Sarajevo Firewood, was shortlisted for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. His other novels are The Book of Errors which was published in 2013, and Forty Years Waiting for Isabelle which won the 2017 Katara Award for Arabic Novels. He has written a travel book about the Balkans, The Inflamed Gardens of the East, 2015, and has written extensively on raï music, including a book (Wedding Fire, 2010). The End of the Sahara won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award Young Author category in 2023.