[4] Aflatoun was born in Cairo in 1924 into a traditional Muslim family she described as "semi-feudal and bourgeois",[5] her father was an entomologist[6] and a landowner,[7] and her mother was a French-trained dress-designer who served in the Egyptian Red Crescent Society women's committee.

[9] Al-Timisani was one of the founders of the 'Art and Freedom Group,' a surrealist movement that would have an impact on Aflatoun's development as an artist.

[7] She wrote Thamanun milyun imraa ma'ana (Eighty Million Women with Us) in 1948 and the pamphlets were confiscated upon release however were redistributed after Aflatoun sued the Ministry of Interior.

[13] At the time of her arrest, she had been awarded the first prize for a landscape painting competition sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Information.

[5] She studied for a year[8] with the Egyptian-born Swiss artist Margo Veillon[16] During this period, she made solo exhibits in Cairo and Alexandria and showed at the Venice Biennale in 1952 and the São Paulo Art Biennial in 1956.

[5] In the years after her liberation, she exhibited in Rome and Paris in 1967, Dresden, East Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow in 1970, Sofia in 1974, Prague in 1975, New Delhi in 1979.

[6] Her paintings are filled with "lively brushstrokes of intense color" reminding some observers of Van Gogh[3] or Bonnard.