Biskra is the setting of key sections of André Gide's 1902 novel The Immoralist, and he visited the town in 1895 (for a fortnight from 31 January) with Lord Alfred Douglas, following a meeting with Oscar Wilde in Blida and Algiers.
Algiers was a favourite winter holiday destination of the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. He composed his Suite algériennein 1880, and died there in 1921.
The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók collected traditional music in Biskra in 1913.
Diana Mayo, protagonist of Edith Maude Hull's popular 1919 novel "The Sheik" starts her journey into the desert from Biskra
