Monique Fleury Nagem, Professor of Modern Languages at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, was born in Paris, France, and holds a Ph.D. in Comparative literature with a concentration on translation from the University of Texas at Austin.

Her translations of many short stories by authors from Canada, Africa, Belgium and her native France, have appeared in various literary magazines. Her Ph.D. dissertation, which was the translation of a novel by the experimental French writer, Chantal Chawaf, became her first book-length publication titled Mother Love/Mother Earth. Subsequently the author asked her to translate her latest novel which appeared in English as Redemption in 1992. In 1998 her translation of a novel by the Belgian-born writer, Dominique Rolin, was published by Peter Lang in their Belgian Literature series, under the title, A Garden of Delights.

Her translation of the memoirs of Céleste Mogador, titled The Memoirs of a Courtesan in Nineteenth Century Paris, was published by the Unversity of Nebraska Press in 2001. Currently Professor Nagem is translating a novel about the Rwandan genocide of 1994 by the francophone Guinean writer Tierno Monénembo titled The Last Orphan. It will also be published by the University of Nebraska Press.