Waciny Laredj (Algeria) was born in 1954. He is a Professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris and the Central University of Algeria, having settled in Paris in 1994. He has written many novels dealing with Algeria’s history and its harsh upheavals. For the past ten years he has produced work on the tragedies of the Arab nation, questioning the sacred and static account of its history. His books are published in Arabic and French. He has won a number of prizes for his work, including the Sheikh Zayed Prize for Literature in 2007. He has been longlisted for IPAF three times: in 2014 with Ashes of the East: the Wolf who Grew Up in the Wilderness, in 2013 for Lolita's Fingers and in 2011 for The Andalucian House.