Yasmina Khadra

Mohammed Moulessehoul known as Yasmina Khadra (b.January 10,1955) is an Algerian author.

Yasmina Khadra is the nom de plume of the former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul. He is the author of six other books published in English, among them The Attack and The Swallows of Kabul, In the Name of God, and Wolf Dreams. He took the feminine pseudonym to avoid submitting his manuscripts for approval by military censors while he was still in the army.

Yamina Khadra is a very productive Algerian writer. He always felt like a writer, even though he was an officer in the Algerian army for 36 years. He was born in the Sahara Desert. His father was a male nurse and his mother was a nomad. In 1964 his father sent him to a military school in Algeria, where he discovered literature and his love for writing. He chose to write in French because his French teacher encouraged him and also because of the censorship of the Algerian authorities. He started with short stories in 1973 in a book called "Houria". In 1975 he joined the Military Academy of Cherchell, where he became on officer. He resigned from the army in 2000 because his writing activity was not compatible with his military duties. After producing a couple of books of short stories, he decided to write some thrillers, to take place during the dreadful years of terrorism in Algeria. He also created at the same time his alter ego, Commissaire Mohammed Llob, his personal spokesman for a present-day Algeria. He revealed his true name and story in his autobiography, "L'Ecrivain", in 2001. He explained that his nickname comes from his wife's surnames, because he admires the courage of women in general and of his wife in particular. The rights of his book "L'Attentat" ("The Attack") were bought by the producers of Brokeback Mountain (2005). His book, "Les Sirenes de Bagdad", (2006) is about the conflict in Iraq. his latest book "Ce que le jour doit à la nuit",(2008). Yasmina Khadra is now living in Aix en Provence in the south of France.

http://www.yasmina-khadra.com/index.php


The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra

Set in Kabul under the rule of the Taliban, this extraordinary novel takes readers into the lives of two couples: Mohsen, who comes from a family of wealthy shopkeepers whom the Taliban has destroyed; Zunaira, his wife, exceedingly beautiful, who was once a brilliant teacher and is now no longer allowed to leave her home without an escort or covering her face. Intersect... more »ing their world is Atiq, a prison keeper, a man who has sincerely adopted the Taliban ideology and struggles to keep his faith, and his wife, Musarrat, who once rescued Atiq and is now dying of sickness and despair.

Desperate, exhausted Mohsen wanders through Kabul when he is surrounded by a crowd about to stone an adulterous woman. Numbed by the hysterical atmosphere and drawn into their rage, he too throws stones at the face of the condemned woman buried up to her waist. With this gesture the lives of all four protagonists move toward their destinies.

The Swallows of Kabul is a dazzling novel written with compassion and exquisite detail by one of the most lucid writers about the mentality of Islamic fundamentalists and the complexities of the Muslim world. Yasmina Khadra brings readers into the hot, dusty streets of Kabul and offers them an unflinching but compassionate insight into a society that violence and hypocrisy have brought to the edge of despair.

(Source:paperbackswap.com)