Literature

Algerian literature, which is written in both Arabic and French, has been heavily affected by the country's recent past. Modern Algerian poets include Moufdi Zakaria, Mohammed Al Aid from the middle of the twentieth century, and Achour Fenni, Amar Meriech, and Azrag Omar from the late 1980s. Famous 20th-century novelists include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine, and Ahlam Mosteghanemi, while Assia Djebar is extensively translated. Rachid Mimouni, subsequently vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, assassinated by an Islamist gang in 1993 for his secularist views, were both major novelists of the 1980s.

Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, was born in El Biar in Algiers, Malek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are known for their thoughts on decolonization, Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras), and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria.

The dominant religion, Islam, has had a strong influence on Algerian culture. Pre-colonial works by the Sanusi dynasty and colonial works by Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis are well known. Apuleius, the Latin author, was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), which later became Algeria.