Feraoun was bon in 1913, belonging to family of poor farmers.His father,who was illiterate,had to migrate several times to seek employment ,for example to Tunisia and even to the north of France,where he worked in coal mines of the north department . There, Feraoun's father suffered an injury, which found a literary treatment in his first novel « fils du pauvre»

In a time where very few of the Muslim children of Algeria went to school, Feraoun studied at the Ecole normale in  Bouzareah 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.

Degueldre was later arrested, court-martialed, and sentenced to death for his complicity in over 20 murders, including that of a British diplomat and Divisional Commissaire of the French National Police and Central Commissaire of Algiers Roger Gavoury.

He was executed by firing squad at fort d’ivry in Paris on 7 July 1962. Three French Army officers were imprisoned and demoted after refusing to command the firing squad to execute Degueldre.