Ahlem Mosteghanemi – författare

Khaled, a former revolutionary in the Algerian war of liberation has been in self-exile in Paris for two decades, disgusted by the corruption that now riddles the country he once fought for. Now a celebrated painter, Khaled is consumed with passion for Hayat, the daughter of his old revolutionary commander, who unexpectedly reenters Khaled’s life. Hayat had been just a child when he last saw her, but she has now become a seductive young novelist. The first novel in an award-winning, bestselling trilogy that spans Algeria’s tumultuous recent history,The Bridges of Constantine is a lyrical and heartrending love story.

''Love always sits in a seat other than the one we were expecting it to, right alongside the place where we expected love to be'' In the midst of the Algerian civil war, Hayat is a young novelist trapped in a loveless marriage. While her husband, a high-ranking officer, preoccupies himself with politics, Hayat finds freedom from her highly regimented life in the world of her writing. There she weaves a passionate story for her characters. But the line between fiction and reality blurs when she falls for a man who seems to have walked straight out of the pages of her notebook, a man who seduces her, instead of her heroine, with his silence. As love on paper becomes a forbidden love lived out in the dark corners of a broken city, Hayat''s country convulses with political upheaval. In a place where those who dare to write the truth are made to pay a heavy price, she and her characters will discover that no one can truly be the author of their own destiny. The second novel in the international bestselling trilogy from ''the literary phenomenon'' (Elle), Ahlem Mosteghanemi, Chaos of the Senses is a powerful story of love, identity and liberation.

''In a voice as dim as a lighthouse on a rainy night, he said, “Beware of loving a woman who loves bridges.”''______________________Once upon a September in Paris…Still heartsick over the break-up of his relationship with the alluring, elusive novelist Hayat, the narrator of The Dust of Promises finds himself adrift in Paris, where he has come to receive a photography award.His photograph of a traumatised war-orphan has been declared profoundly affecting by the judges, but he knows that no picture can ever fully capture the desolation and destruction he has witnessed in his Algerian homeland.When he stumbles into an art exhibition on one of the capital''s side streets, he is struck by the power of the paintings and feels impelled to learn more about the artist – an Algerian exile whose painful longing for the country he has lost shines out of his work.The artist is none other than Khaled, the man who haunted the pages of Hayat''s first novel, just as the narrator was inextricably entangled in her second. As the two men embark on a tentative friendship, a twist of fate brings Hayat herself to France, where the destinies of all of them will once again collide.The final novel in the international bestselling trilogy from ''the literary phenomenon'' (Elle) Ahlem Mosteghanemi, The Dust of Promises is a haunting, elegiac story of love, memory and betrayal - and of what it means to come home.______________________''Remarkable, insightful ... The elegiac quality is present not just in the themes, but also in the astonishingly poetic language throughout … I stopped and marvelled every few pages ... This is one of the richest and most evocative books that I have read all year'' Independent''Ahlem has carved a place for herself as one of the most important writers of the Arab world'' Youssef Chahine, Egyptian director, winner of the Cannes Film Lifetime Achievement Award

‘Love always sits in a seat other than the one we were expecting it to, right alongside the place where we expected love to be’In the midst of the Algerian civil war, Hayat is a young novelist trapped in a loveless marriage. While her husband, a high-ranking officer, preoccupies himself with politics, Hayat finds freedom from her highly regimented life in the world of her writing. There she weaves a passionate story for her characters. But the line between fiction and reality blurs when she falls for a man who seems to have walked straight out of the pages of her notebook, a man who seduces her, instead of her heroine, with his silence.As love on paper becomes a forbidden love lived out in the dark corners of a broken city, Hayat’s country convulses with political upheaval. In a place where those who dare to write the truth are made to pay a heavy price, she and her characters will discover that no one can truly be the author of their own destiny.The second novel in the international bestselling trilogy from ‘the literary phenomenon’ (Elle), Ahlem Mosteghanemi, Chaos of the Senses is a powerful story of love, identity and liberation.