Yasmina Khadra is the feminine pseudonym adopted by Mohammed Moulessehoul to avoid military censorship. Moulessehoul was born in the Algerian Sahara in 1955 and at one time was an officer in the Algerian military. His recent fiction trilogy on Middle Eastern realities—The Swallows of Kabul, The Attack, and The Sirens of Baghdad—has been widely acclaimed and translated. Moulessehoul is now retired from the military and living in France. Donald Nicholson-Smith and Alyson Waters are both seasoned translators. This is their first translation together.
Luc Lang is an award-winning French author of many works, including Voyage sur la ligne d’horizon; Furies; and Les Indiens. He has also published the startling autobiographical work 11 septembre mon amour. He teaches aesthetics at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris et Cergy.
Donald Nicholson-Smith has translated noir or noirish fiction by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Thierry Jonquet, and, with Alyson Waters, Yasmina Khadra’s Cousin K (Nebraska, 2013). Born in Manchester, England, he is a longtime resident of New York City.