The best-selling Arab female author of all time.
ARABE 2025
In 2006, Forbes magazine ranked the renowned Algerian author Ahlem Mosteghanemi as the most prolific Arab female writer and one of the ten most influential women in the Middle East. Her work, notably the bestseller Memory in the Flesh (Zakirat al-Jassad), had already achieved enormous sales, exceeding 2,300,000 copies at that time.
In 2007 and 2008, Arabian Business magazine ranked the Algerian author Ahlam Mosteghanemi among the 100 most influential Arab personalities and among the ten most influential women in the Arab world, placing her first in the field of literature.
On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in Great Britain, on April 19, 2016—the official and public launch date of the “Shakespeare Year”—I was invited by the British Council to write an essay on one of his works. I chose the play Antony and Cleopatra.My essay was entitled “When Shakespeare Thought I Was Cleopatra.”It was published in a collection bringing together writings by six international figures, including John Kerry, then U.S. Secretary of State, and Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature.
They said about Ahlem
Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO
During the nomination ceremony of Ahlem Mosteghanemi as UNESCO Artist for Peace
This is a great lady, a great intellectual, a great writer, a militant, a militant for women’s rights, a militant for children’s rights, against violence, for the right to education. She has a sensitivity which belongs to great intellectuals towards justice; the social justice, the social inclusion. UNESCO, which is our house, the house of culture and education, is rich through its networks of intellectuals, its great personalities, and, as I said recently, I believe that our new Artist for Peace was the first in many of her ambitions: the first woman that published a novel in the Arabic language, the first woman among female Arab writers to be distinguished by Forbes and many publishing houses. She was always the first. This is very symbolic for this militant and fighter. Myself, I’m very moved and proud.
( 17 December 2016 / Resigned on 23 January 2024)
The first President of Algeria, Leader Ahmed Ben Bella
Ahlem Mosteghanemi is an Algerian sun which enlightens Arabic literature. She has carried Algerian literature to a level which evolves into the history of the Algerian fight.
Geneva, 12 February 2002
Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika
You have managed, thanks to your generous writing and your abundant imagination as well as your humanism and noble values, to convey the admirable image of the Arab woman, and Algerian woman in particular. This is not unusual for you considering the remarkable path you took over the years, a path paved with lights of creativity and continuous innovation.
From the President’s letter to the writer dated 27 April 2016.
Jury for the « Najib Mahfouz Award »
" The Algerian writer, Ahlem Mosteghanemi, is a light which sparkles in the middle of the darkness. This novel was able to combine the best of the international novel with popular tradition. Written in an elegant Arabic language and a pointed literary sense, it is endowed with a unique, aesthetic and technical weft, with a well tied up story which provokes admiration and dazzle . "
(Naguib Mahfouz Award 1998for the novel Memory of the Flesh, American University in Cairo)
Princess Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca
Ahlam Mosteghanemi is the greatest contemporary Arab writer, a literary icon and a bold voice for women who writes with courage and conviction. I have read all of her works with great pleasure.
30 July 2024 Italian researcher and orientalist
Mervat El-Tellawy
The crowning of the Algerianwriter "Ahlam Mosteghanemi" with this humanitarian position stems from her significant role as one of the most influential Arab women writers, whose works are considered among the most widely read in the world. This recognition represents an additional asset in the journey of Arab women
Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCWA ( 2001–2007 ), and President of the National Council for Women (2012–2016)
Youssef Chahine
I greatly admired Memory in the Flesh. The book possesses a fertile imagination for the creation of cinematic imagery, which Ahlam infused into her novel.
As for Ahlam the writer, she is an extraordinary woman who managed to establish herself as one of the important voices of the Arabic novel, reigning over the throne of writing in the late twentieth century.
In 1998, on the occasion of purchasing the rights to Memory in the Flesh to adapt it into an international film.
Director Mustafa Akkad
I dream of turning Memory of the Flesh into a great cinematic work that immortalizes the Algerian revolution. Any director interested in Arab history would be captivated by this novel.
Syrian-American film director and producer, the first Arab to reach Hollywood(Abu Dhabi TV, 2001)
Nigel Newton
Translating Ahlam’s works allows us to gain insight into the aspirations and interests of millions of readers who see themselves reflected in her novels, while also serving as another way to explore the Arab world—a world so close, yet seemingly so distant.
CEO of Bloomsbury Publishin
Tetz Rooke
Je suis un paragraphe. Cliquez ici pour ajouter votre propre texte et me modifier. C'est facile.
Ahlam Mosteghanemi stands as the preeminent "luminous star" in the firmament of modern Arabic fiction—an exceptional phenomenon in contemporary letters. She is the visionary who truly inaugurated the era of the "Arab Bestseller", With unparalleled mastery, she dissolved the historical rift between '
" elite aesthetics" and 'popular appeal,' weaving them into a single, seamless tapestry.
The 1993 release of her seminal masterpiece, The Bridge of Constantine, marked a historic watershed, revealing a vast, yearning audience for high literature in the Arab world. The essence of her brilliance lies in transmuting national memory and political history into lyrical prose and an emotional epic. Her novels are not merely read by the mind; they are lived as profound, personal journeys of the soul .
Reference:
Tetz Rooke, "The Emergence of the Arabic Bestseller," Arabic Fiction and World Literature – University of Gothenburg.
Nizar Kabbani
The novel Zakirat al-Jassad overwhelmed me… The text I read resembles me: it is mad, tense, daring, wild, human, passionate, and lawless—just like me. And if anyone had asked me to sign my name beneath this extraordinary novel, drenched in showers of poetry, I would not have hesitated for a single moment.ahlam attacked the blank page as I do—with boundless beauty, relentless ferocity, and unparalleled madness.
London, 20 August 1995 The most famous contemporary Arab poet
Her Highness Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi
Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s recognition as Cultural Personality of the Year at Sharjah International Book Fair celebrates her seismic impact on Arabic literature. Her words are a narrative thread running through Arab heritage and identity.
Sharjah 2024
