Yasmine Khlat was born in 1959 in Ismailia, Egypt, near the Suez Canal. In Beirut, she began her film career in 1979, starring as Nalhain the film of the same name, by Algerian film-maker Farouk Beloufa. She also appeared in feature films by Abdellatif Ben Ammar (Tunisia) and Mohamed Malas (Syria), two directors who would be selected for the Cannes Film Festival.
Yasmine Khlat left Lebanon for France during the civil war and made a documentary, Leylouna – Notre nuit (1988), before entering literature more than a decade later with her first novel, Le désespoir est un péché (2001).
A naturalised French citizen, Yasmine Khlat lives and works in Paris.