Ben Zahra stresses his novels reflect his experiences

Algerian Novelist Lakhdar Ben Zahra prepares currently for participating in Cairo International Book Fair, scheduled to be launched on January 27, with two new novels, including “Memory Setbacks” and “The Strange Pain.

The Algerian author, currently living in Cairo, said, to “Arabs Today”, that the two novels are related to each other, as they have been issued at the same time. He added both novels have the same leading character and the same story.

He added, “The first novel, entitled “Memory Setbacks”, is composed of five chapters in which the narrator seeks for a lover, as he suffers from social and familial containment. He turns to find a female to integrate with her and to get rid of his isolation.

However, Ben Zahra added, he fails every time to achieve his objective, the matter which increases his pains. He continued, “Every experience is an emotional setback leaving pains so he turns in the end to abandon his dream of love and writing.”

He added that the first novel reflects personal experience, and centers on two main dilemmas; the first is his relations with woman, and the other is the relation between love and pain.

The second novel entitled “The Strange Pain”, the Algerian novelist added, starts with an accidental meeting between an Algerian young man and Egyptian girl on internet. He added, “They were discussing the football crisis erupted between the two countries against the backdrop of a football match between the two national teams. The leading character talked with her the deep relations between the two countries for decades.”

He added that the two leading characters love each other, while the Arab Spring revolutions dispersed them. He added that he insists on challenges the different difficulties to complete his life with her.

In the end, according to the novelist, he discovers that the love he sought did not achieve sufficiency for him, as she accepts him as a husband not an author