Tobie Nathan

Tobie Nathan was born in Cairo in 1948 to Jewish parents. His family was expelled from Egypt under Nasser in 1956, along with many other Jews, and sought refuge in Italy. Today, he is an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Paris VIII and an author. He is one of the main representatives of French ethnopsychiatry. Nathan has taught and participated in academic and humanitarian organizations in France and Africa. He has founded and directed several journals. For many years, he served as an official psychiatric expert for the French courts. He studied under the pioneer Georges Devereux and specialized in ethnopsychiatry, which involves the study of the mythologies and beliefs of African peoples and tribes, beyond the Freudian code and the Oedipal theories that are more aligned with the mythologies of Western culture. He applied these studies to the African immigrant communities in Paris and the rest of France. Prolific in his writing, with an extensive body of published scientific work, he also writes detective and other novels, where the plots are set within these communities. His most well-known detective novels include "Saraka Bo," which caused a sensation when first published in France in 1993, as well as "Dieu-Dope," "Qui a tué Arlozoroff," and "Serial Eater."