Yasmina Khadra is the nom de plume of the former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul. His newest book, The Sirens of Baghdad, will be published in May 2007. He is the author of six other books published in English, among them The Attack and The Swallows of Kabul. He took the feminine pseudonym to avoid submitting his manuscripts for approval by military censors while he was still in the army. He lives in Aix-en-Provence, France.