Marie Didier

Marie Didier was born in Algiers in 1939. She hardly knew her father, a captain in the French army, who died in 1940. She was brought up by her mother, a teacher. She began her career as a physician (gynecologist) at the Mustapha Hospital, the largest in Algeria. She then worked among people in the poorest slums. Very sensitive to human misery, she uses writing to raise awareness and share her struggle. She became a writer like other doctors such as Rabelais and Chekhov before her. Among her published works are: Contre-visite (1988); La mise à l'air (1992); La vie de Jeanne (2000); The Russian Kettle (2002), Dans la nuit de Bicêtre (2006), which won the Prix Jean Bernard awarded by the French National Academy of Medicine; and Morte-saison sur la ficelle (2008), short stories.