Yasmina Khadra
Mohammed Moulessehoul better known by the nom de plume Yasmina Khadra is an award-winning Algerian author who writes in French and Arabic. A former officer of the Algerian army, he adopted his wife’s name as a pseudonym to avoid military censorship. His novel set in Afghanistan under the Taliban, The Swallows of Kabul, was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award (2006), as was The Attack (2008). L’Attentat won the Prix des libraires in 2006, a prize chosen by about five thousand bookstores in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada. Yasmina Khadra became director of the Algerian Cultural Center in Paris in November 2007. He is the author of six other books published in English, among them are The Attack, The Swallows of Kabul, In the Name of God, and Wolf Dreams. He lives in Aix-en-Provence, France.