The Writings of Mauritania and the Western Sahara documents1800 authors, and 10,000 titles across 300 years of Arabic manuscript production, featuring juridical, literary and religious subjects, with biographical and bibliographical profiles of the leading authors and most important works.

Charles C. Stewart, D.Phil Oxon. is Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa, Northwestern University. He developed the first computer-based bilingual cataloguing system for Arabic manuscripts in West Africa, now on-line, for Mauritanian collections.
Sidi Ahmed ould Ahmed Salem, Ph.D. University of Mohammed V, taught as a professor of Arabic literature in Nouakchott before joining the Al-Jazeera Center for Studies in Doha where he now heads the Africa bureau. He has published widely on Mauritanian literature and edited a number of texts.