Nicholas Sparks The Lucky One given Hollywood treatment

Logan Thibault, a US marine, finally returns home after serving three tours in Iraq. Although he is safely back in familiar territory, his spirit is wounded following the death of friends on the battlefield and the difficulty of readjusting to the so-called "real" world. While in Iraq, Thibault finds a picture, covered in dirt, of a mysterious smiling woman and believes it brings him luck. At home, he cannot seem to shake off an overwhelming sense of curiosity and determination to locate the subject of the photograph. The journey he then embarks on changes his life. The Lucky One is the latest novel by the international bestselling American writer Nicholas Sparks, to be adapted by Hollywood for an April release. Sparks, who is in Dubai for the first time taking part in the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, will tomorrow morning host a film panel discussion entitled "From Page to Screen" at the InterContinental hotel in Dubai Festival City. He will be joined by the British crime author Mark Billingham and the Chinese writers Chan Koonchung and Bi Feiyu. Sparks says that Logan Thibault, played by the actor Zac Efron in the film, is unlike any other character he created, making The Lucky One a story close to his heart and cementing the author's hopes to always surprise his readers. "He [Thibault] is a very stoic character. He is someone who spent time in a theatre of war, watched friends die and it profoundly changed him. He thinks the photograph kept him alive," says Sparks, just before heading into the festival's opening ceremony on Tuesday morning. "It's a way for him to deal with the stress and to find some sort of meaning in his own life. He's a wounded character as he moves through this story. As he falls for her, it starts to heal him." Seeing individuals who struggle to cope with the experience of war is an all too familiar scene to Sparks, who lives in North Carolina with his family near two major military bases – Fort Bragg and Fort Lejeune. "We have 200,000 active military and their families nearby. They are part and parcel of my town and life. We see them and I remember every single one of them had either gone to Iraq or Afghanistan and when they come back – they are all changed. "All different. Some very shaken," says Sparks. "It's a novel that really captures the challenges of readjusting to the real world. The Hurt Locker, which won Academy Awards, did that also very well." Sparks's books have been translated into 45 languages and grossed more than US$80 million (Dh294m) in international sales. During the panel discussion, he hopes to share his experiences, in a bid to encourage writers and to tackle the primary difference between the novel and the film adaptation. His first novel, Message in a Bottle, was adapted into a 1999 movie starring Kevin Costner, Robin Wright and Paul Newman. It was followed by A Walk to Remember with Mandy Moore in 2002. To date, seven of his books have been adapted for the big screen and all have featured A-list celebrities. "I've had experience from different angles: I'm a producer, writer, screenwriter and also had others adapt my work, so I will offer advice that hopefully will make the process clearer for people who want to be writers and have their project adapted to film. I'll be there to answer any questions they have," Sparks says. When he is not attending the festival's sessions or sightseeing in Dubai, Sparks says he will be in his hotel room writing his latest book.