Elissa Rhaïs (Hebrew: אליסה ראיס), born Rosine Boumendil (12 December 1876 – 18 August 1940) was a Jewish-Algerian writer, who adopted the persona of a Muslim woman who had escaped from a harem to further her literary career.

[3] She became known as a storyteller, claiming that her stories were passed down to her by her mother and grandmother, and therefore part of the rich folk heritage of her native region.

[2] From this time, Rhaïs began to present herself as a Muslim woman who had escaped from a harem, but how instrumental she was in this new persona's construction, or indeed whether she wrote the book and the others that followed at all, has been questioned.

[4] It has been suggested that her new identity was created as marketing ploy orchestrated by Louis Bertrand and René Doumic; alternatively that it was an invention of Rhaïs herself.

[5] Rhaïs did establish a literary salon in Paris, which was frequented by writers such as Colette, Paul Morand, Jean Amrouche, as well as the actress Sarah Bernhardt.

[2] There, Rhaïs dressed in combinations of Berber and Muslim clothing, suggesting an exotic background which was popularised with a cultural fascination at the time for all things "Oriental".

"[7]Regardless of the situation that the novels were produced in, Rhaïs has an important place in Judeo-Maghrebian literature, as an early female Jewish-Algerian writer.

[8] However her life has continued to be a source of intrigue and fantasy in the media, due to the publication of the novel Elissa Rhaïs, un roman and the subsequent television production.

[11] The TV movie Le secret d'Elissa Rhaïs was filmed in 1993 by the director Jacques Otmezguine (fr), based on the book by Paul Tabet but in a romanticized way.