At the beginning of January 2007 I was introduced to a writer whose work I had not only never read but had never heard of before. I just naturally assumed that Yasmina Kahdra was a woman until I received the first books from his publisher in North America for me to review. Yasmina Kahdra is the pen name of Mohammed Moulessehoul, an Algerian now living in France.

I have to confess that Yasmina was the first writer I had ever read from the Arab world, and even though the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature went to an Arab, I have made little or no effort to educate myself. But since reading five of his books and conducting this interview, my interest has been piqued.

This was a bit of an awkward interview to conduct, because Med Kahdra only reads and writes in French and Arabic, while I can only handle those duties in English. I must say that Google translation performed admirably well with only one question causing confusion. I utilized three separate translation programs, to bring his answers back into to English and to try and capture the word and the spirit of his answer.

Med Kahdra is a fascinating man who provides us in the West with a different perspective on life in Arab countries to the one being presented in our media on an almost daily basis.

I would like to thank him for taking the time to participate in this interview and I hope you are as fascinated with his responses as I was.

1) Tell us a little about yourself, where you were born and other biographical details.

I was born, 52 years ago, in the Algerian Sahara. My father was a male nurse and my mother a settled nomad. My tribe has occupied Kenadsa (the village where I was born) for eight centuries. She is known for her poetry and her wisdom. She has always welcomed, without regard to race or religion, all the travellers who knocked on her door: the writer and explorer Isabelle Eberhardt, the Minister Charles de Foucauld, as well as the missionaries who crossed the desert in the direction of Tombouctou and Africa.

I was born in a tribe of poets and warriors. This is why I never felt out of place in the army as a novelist. It is my tribe which taught me how to me to share myself between the two.