[1] All of his works describe Feraoun's native society – the Berber mountain farmers – and their life, poverty, the love of one's homeland, emigration, and the consequences of French colonialism.

His father, who was illiterate, had to migrate several times to seek employment, for example to Tunisia and even to northern France, where he worked in the coal mines of the Nord departement.

In a time where very few of the Muslim children of Algeria went to school, Feraoun studied at the Ecole normale in Bouzaréah District in order to qualify as a teacher, and in 1935, he began to teach in his own birthplace.

Later, from 1957, Feraoun was a school director in Algiers, and in 1960, he was made an inspector who supervised social institutions that cared for disadvantaged Algerians.

On 15 March, 1962, together with five of his colleagues, he was assassinated by an OAS unit under the command of Roger Degueldre, just four days before the end of the Algerian War.