Waciny Laredj, Algerian writer, novelist, and academic. He currently holds a chair professorship at both the University of Algiers and Sorbonne University in Paris. His novel, The Keeper of Shadows, was selected in 1997 as one of the best five novels published in France, and in 2005 he was chosen as one of six international novelists to write modern Arab history. His works have been translated into several foreign languages, including French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Hebrew, English, and Spanish.