Amina Saïd was born in Tunis (Tunisia) in 1953. She has been living in Paris for many years. As well as seventeen collections of poems, including a trilogy (Tombeau pour sept frères, Les Saisons d’Aden, Le Corps noir du soleil), she has published two volumes of Tunisian folktales.
Her work has been honored by literary prizes, been the subject of critical studies, and anthologized and translated widely, in particular into Spanish and English (The Present Tense of the World: Poems 2000–2009, translated by Marilyn Hacker, Black Widow Press, Boston, 2011), or at the worldwide literary festivals in which she often participates. She has also translated from English into French several novels and short stories by the major Filipino writer F. Sionil José.