Mohamed Nedali was born in Tahannaout, near Marrakech, in 1962 into a family of poor farmers. Educated in Marrakech and at Nancy 2 University, France, he has taught at his local high school since 1985. The author of six novels, his debut, Morceaux de choix: les amours d'un apprenti boucher/Prime Cuts: The Life & Loves of an Apprentice Butcher was selected by J.M.G. Read More Le Clézio as the winner of the 2005 Grand Atlas Prize, and for the International Prize of the Novel of Diversity at the Festival of Cartagena in 2009. In 2012, his latest novel Triste Jeunesse/Sad Youth won the third Mamounia Literary Prize. The English translation of Prime Cuts by André Naffis-Sahely will be published by Ohio University Press in 2016 and it was awarded a Hemingway Grant by the French Embassy in the US.