Mundther Al-Qabbani was born in Riyadh in 1970. He is a Saudi physician and novelist who has emerged in recent years as one of the most prominent Saudi novelists who has contributed to the spread of the Saudi novel in the Arab world. Munther Al-Qabbani earned a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the College of Medicine at King Saud University in 1994. He later specialized in general surgery, obtaining the Canadian Board of Surgery from the University of Toronto in 2001. He then specialized in liver and pancreatic surgery at the University of British Columbia in Canada until 2003, before returning to his homeland, Saudi Arabia. He has published a few articles in local newspapers, but his name became prominent in the world of writing and literature after the publication of his first novel, The Shadow Government.