Nathalie Etoké was born on the 20th of June 1977 in Paris. Born into a family of four children, her father is a solicitor and her mother a company lawyer in Douala. The family returned to Cameroon in 1978 where Nathalie lived until August 1995. She then spent five years in Lille where she obtained a Masters degree in modern literature. In 2001, Nathalie left France for the USA and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where, in June 2006, she graduated with a PhD in French. She is (2010) Assistant Professor of French and Africana Studies in the Department of French Studies at Connecticut College, New London, USA.