Waciny Laredj is an Algerian academic, novelist, and professor of literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris and at the Central University of Algeria. He was born in 1954 in Tlemcen province in West Algeria and has lived in Paris since 1994. Laredj obtained his BA in Arabic literature from the University of Algiers and his MA and PhD from the University of Damascus. His works range from historical fiction to contemporary romance; a large proportion tackle the history of the Algerian and Arab nations. He has written about the Moors, Andalusia, the Algerian revolution, the Black Decade of the 1990s, and the latest Arab upheavals. Most of his books are published in Arabic, and some have been translated into French. In his writings, Laredj has often been critical of both the dominant one-party regime in Algeria and the Islamists. His fictional works address an array of controversial issues including the accuracy of national history, questions of postcolonial Algerian identity, and the position of the artist and intellectual in contemporary Algeria. Laredj has won a number of prizes for his work including the Sheikh Zayed Prize for Literature and has been longlisted for the IPAF three times.