Yasmina Khadra

Yasmina Khadra is the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, an Algerian novelist and former army officer. His books, among them The Swallows of Kabul and What the Day Owes the Night, have been translated into about 40 languages. He was born on 10 January 1955 in Kénadsa, in the Algerian Sahara.

Moulessehoul's mother was of nomadic origin. His father, a nurse, became an officer in the National Liberation Army, which fought for independence.

At 9 the boy entered the cadet school in Tlemcen, and he later trained at the military academy in Cherchell. He left it as a second lieutenant in 1978.

Writing came early, with a first collection of stories finished in 1973. To escape army censorship, he took his wife's 2 first names, Yasmina Khadra, as a pen name. Morituri, a crime novel, made that name famous in 1997.

In September 2000 the writer left the army with the rank of major, and in 2001 he settled in Aix-en-Provence. That year, in L'Écrivain, he revealed his true identity. 3 novels about Kabul, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq brought him world fame, between 2002 and 2006.

From 2007 to 2014 he directed the Algerian Cultural Centre in Paris, and in 2011 the Académie française gave him the Grand Prix Henri Gal. In November 2013 he announced a bid for the 2014 presidential election, but he was not among the 6 approved candidates. In March 2026 he published a new novel, Le Prieur de Bethléem.