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Mohammed Moulessehoul (; born 10 January 1955), better known by the pen name Yasmina Khadra (), is an Algerian author living in France, who writes in French language. One of the most famous Algerian novelists in the world, he has written almost 40 novels, and has published in more than 50 countries. Khadra has often explored Algerian and other Arab countries' , depicting Muslim conflicts and reality, the attraction of radical Islamism to those alienated by the incompetence and hypocrisy of politicians, and conflicts between East and West. In his several writings on the Algerian war, he has exposed the regime and the fundamentalist opposition as the joint guilty parties in the country's tragedy.
While at military school, at age 18, he finished his first volume of short stories, which was to appear eleven years later as Houria (1984).
In the early nineties, as a commander in the special forces, he was stationed at the Algerian-Moroccan border and in Oran Province, during the military deployment against Islamic fundamentalists, AIS and GIA. He suffered three nervous breakdowns, escaped two ambushes and was three times forced to land in a helicopter.
In order to avoid a 1988 regulation, obliging soldiers to submit any written works to a military censorship board, Khadra published his further works under different pseudonyms, including 'Commissaire Llob'. Brahim Llob is also the name of the protagonist in a series of detective novels – the incorruptible, increasingly helpless police detective, who uncovers the grievances of Algerian society, including corruption and cliquism, and as a result, gets between the frontlines of the Islamists and the powerful elite.
Following the publication of his first two books, Khadra could only get published abroad. To bypass the censorship, his wife signed his publishing contracts; in homage he later took as his pen name her first two names – Yasmina Khadra ("green jasmine blossom").
In 1997, Khadra published the detective novel Morituri (Eng. 2003), which was to bring him international recognition. Okacha Touita adapted and directed the film under the same title in 2004. Together with volumes Double Blank (1998, Eng. 2005) and Autumn of the Phantoms (1998, Eng. 2006), they form a trilogy, which portrays the Algerian Civil War and its background in a way that is both authentic and interesting. He has written these novels with a European (French) readership in mind as they focus on the psychological and social causes of Islamic fundamentalism using precise documentary detail and emotional intensity. He describes, from the perspective of Inspector Llob, Algerian everyday life and its omnipresent violence – bombings, corruption and the lack of economic prospects for large parts of the population. With these novels, he has succeeded in anchoring the genre detective novel in Algerian literature. Together with his earlier books, Le Dingue au bistouri (1990) and La Foire des enfoirés (1993), they meet the formal criteria of the French Noir fiction subgenre. In the final volume, the protagonist is discovered as the author behind the pseudonym Yasmina Khadra, is suspended from service, and dies.
Khadra himself managed to escape the same fate. In 2000, he quit the army to concentrate on literature and went with his family into exile in France via Mexico.
One of French critics noted eventually however: "A he or a she? It doesn't matter. What matters is that Yasmina Khadra is today one of Algeria's most important writers". Although Khadra lives in France, he does not allow himself to be absorbed by the western point of view, but rather advocates getting to know and understanding.
His Algerian trilogy was followed in 2002 by The Swallows of Kabul (Eng. 2004), in which action takes place in 1998's Afghanistan. The novel depicts the dictatorship of the and the condition of the Afghan woman. In an interview with the German radio station SWR1 in 2006, Khadra said:
Adam Piore of Newsweek wrote: "Yet it is the journey into the beaten souls of Khandra's characters that makes this book so affecting. Few writers have so powerfully conveyed what it feels like to live in a totalitarian society, where uncompromising zealotry has thoroughly penetrated the national psyche. This book is a masterpiece of misery." The Swallows of Kabul was shortlisted for the IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award in 2006. The novel was adapted to animated film under the same title in 2019.
In 2004, Khadra published the crime novel Dead Man's Share (Eng. 2009), in which his character Llob becomes the plaything of the mighty in post-colonial Algeria.
The Attack (2005, Eng. 2006) explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and follows the life of an Arab Israeli couple living in Tel Aviv. The protagonist is a well-established medical doctor whose life is turned upside down when his wife becomes an Islamist terrorist and a suicide bomber. The novel received several literary prizes in 2006, including Prix des libraires – a prize chosen by about five thousand bookstores in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada – as the first Algerian laureate. In 2008, The Attack was shortlisted for the IMPAC award, his second work nominated. The novel's film adaptation, The Attack (2012) by Ziad Doueiri, garnered positive critics' reviews. In The Sirens of Baghdad, published in 2006 (Eng. 2007), Khadra looks at the Iraq War.
What the Day Owes the Night (2008, Eng. 2010) is a saga that takes place in Algeria between 1930 and 1962 and depicts a courageous defence of the double Franco-Algerian culture. "Broader in its canvas then his page-turning stories of Baghdad or Kabul .. tale of family, love and war ... Rich in incident and character (and ably translated by Frank Wynne), the novel shows us from within the colonised Algeria that Albert Camus – as he acknowledged – could only glimpse as an outsider." Film adaptation under the same title (2012) did not meet commercial expectations, but was positively reviewed.
In 2011, Khadra was awarded the honorary Henri Gal Grand Prize for Literature by the French Academy.
Reviewing his novel Cousin K (2003, Eng. 2013), Steve Emmet of the New York Journal of Books wrote " Cousin K may be a small book but it is a giant of a literary work." In Khalil (2018, Eng. 2021), Khadra puts himself in the shoes of a Belgian terrorist of Moroccan origin, who blew himself up in Paris in November 2015. This novel was one of the best-selling books in France in 2018.
His novels have been translated into 48 languages, and published in 56 countries. Besides film adaptations, including international productions, they were also adapted to theatre, and comics.
In 2007–2014, he served as director of the Algerian Cultural Center in Paris, at the request of President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Khadra was removed from this position, after he had described the fourth term of President as "absurdity".
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