But wasn’t Khadra himself a part of an army that was accused of excesses while combating armed Islamic radicals in Algeria? “I would have been in prison if I had massacred anybody. The excesses were individual excesses, by individuals who had lost it. They have been tried in Algeria. I made war for eight years and it was a war against terrorists. There was no conflict between citizens or ethnic groups. It was war against international fundamentalism. Terrorists have no country or religion, they are just a travelling nightmare.”

Just as all Arabs are not terrorists, all Arabic women aren’t passive victims of patriarchy. That’s one of the many stereotypes Khadra breaks. In The Swallows of Kabul, the lovely Zunaira is the epitome of grace and beauty, while in The Attack, the female protagonist Sihem is a suicide bomber. The female presence asserts again in The Sirens of Baghdad, though silently and from the background. “During the war when there was terrorism in Algeria, women taught us how to be men and how to defend our dignity. But, I am not going to fantasise when I write, and invent for Arabic women, roles that she is disqualified to play in society,” he says.

What’s important, says Khadra, are human relationships that build bridges that politics cannot. “My novels are part of the commitment to build these bridges. I know war, I know how it comes and how it develops,” he says, satisfied with the way The Sirens of Baghdad has turned out. “I have visited Iraq twice—once well before the war and once just before it. I wanted to tell the Americans the mistakes they made. A number of Iraqi artistes and intellectuals have congratulated me for this book,” he says. Khadra, however, continues to stay in France. “I am a man of peace who writes about war. France allows me to write freely, so I stay there as a cultural ambassador of my country.”