Evelyne Accad was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1943. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Indiana University in 1973. Professor Accad's research interests include contemporary literature, Arab women's contribution to literature, and Arab feminist writing; gender, war and non-violent alternatives; creative writing. She is also an accomplished song writer and musician, and has performed at numerous venues throughout the United States.

L’Excisée was Accad’s first novel, and it confronts the physical and symbolic mutilation of women. Her other publications include Blessures des Mots: Journal de Tunisie (Paris: Cote-Femmes, 1993, English edition, Wounding Words: A Woman's Journal in Tunisia, Heinemann, 1996); Des femmes, des hommes et la guerre: Fiction et Réalité au Proche-Orient, (Paris: Cote-Femmes, 1993, France-Liban Award, 1994); Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East (NYU Press, 1990); Coquelicot du massacre (with cassette of songs) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1988); Contemporary Arab Women Writers and Poets (Beirut: IWSAW, 1986); L'Excisée (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1982 and 1992, English translation, The Excised, Colorado, Three Continents Press, 1989 and 1995); Montjoie Palestine or Last Year in Jerusalem (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1980); Veil of Shame: The Role of Women in the Modern Fiction of North Africa and the Arab World (Sherbrooke: Naaman, 1978, International Edicator's Award); thirteen chapters in books, fifty-seven articles and more than sixty book reviews.

Accad is Professor of French at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.