Boualem Sansal

Boualem Sansal (born 1949) is an Algerian writer, engineer and economist. Until his dismissal in spring 2003, he served as director of Algeria’s Ministry of Industry. His novel The Oath of the Barbarians established him as a major representative of North African literature. His fiction received several awards, including the Prix du Premier Roman, the Prix Louis-Guilloux, the Grand Prix RTL-Lire and the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française. In 2011, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.