Mohammed Nadrani was born in the Rif Mountains in 1954. As a young man he was active in a Marxist-Leninist association and was arrested during the student protests of 1976. Today, Nadrani works as a cartoonist for the Arab daily newspaper Al-Ayyam.
His artistic adventure began when he found a piece of charcoal in his cell, which eventually lead to the publication of a 48-page-long comic book entitled 'Les Sarcophages du complexe' about the Moroccan 'years of lead' (the dictatorship) under King Hassan II.
"Before I found that small piece of charcoal, I worked with a brush that I made from the threads of my pants", he writes in his book. He used coffee for ink. After he was arrested, Nadrani was locked up without trial, 'like a mummy in its coffin' and held in three secret locations: the Complex in Rabat, which provided the title for his book, and in Agdz and Kalaât Mgouna. He was finally released on 31 December, 1984. "I am very proud of this comic book", he says, "and I use it to challenge the people who tried to break me by torturing me".