Yasmina Khadra

Behind the female pseudonym Yasmina Khadra is the author Mohammed Moulessehoul. He was born in 1955 in Algeria and entered a military school at the age of nine. He began publishing literary works in 1984, having already become an officer. The mistrust with which the military establishment of his country viewed a military writer, and particularly the civil war in Algeria, forced him to go underground as a writer and use a female pseudonym. He soon left the army and, after a period in Mexico, settled in southern France, where he lives to this day. He became known for a series of detective novels featuring the character Inspector "Lob". Publishing under the name Yasmina Khadra, he gained fame in France with books such as "Morituri" (1997), "Double blanc" (1997), "L'automne des Chimeres" (1998), and "La dingue au bistouri" (1990-1999). This was followed by novels like "Les agneaux de Seigneur" (1998), "A quoi revent les loups" (1999, translated as "What Wolves Dream Of" by Marina Mentzou, Kastaniotis Publications 2000), the autobiographical works "L'ecrivain" (2001) and "L'imposture de mots", the novella "Cousin K", and the more recent novel trilogy "Les Hirondelles de Kaboul", "L'attentat" (Prix des libraires, 2006), and "Les sirenes de Bagdad" (2006). Moulessehoul revealed his true identity to the French press in January 2001, when he resigned from the army. His novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, achieving great success and have been repeatedly adapted into films.