It is set in the east of Algeria, with most of the action taking place in the region around Constantine and Annaba (referred to by its French name, Bône, in the text).

Shortly after this, still in the first part of the novel, another of the characters, Mourad, is involved in a brawl at a wedding which results in his being responsible for the death of M. Ricard, another French entrepreneur.

Although based on a real person, with whom Yacine had a relationship, Nedjma (who rarely speaks in the novel and whose character is not developed) has frequently been identified with Algeria, "la femme-patrie".

Largely eschewing a simple 'realist' style, and written in a highly sophisticated French which at times passes into poetry, Nedjma has been compared stylistically with contemporary French works of the Nouveau Roman period, although Charles Bonn notes that William Faulkner was a much greater influence on Yacine than any of the Nouveau Roman writers.

It has also been read as a response to Albert Camus' famous novel L'Etranger which centres on the apparently irrational murder of an Algerian Arab by a French Pied-Noir.