Best-selling Algerian Author, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, Dispenses Husband-selection Advice on Facebook

Al Arabiya reports that—since the start of Ramadan—top-selling Algerian novelist Ahlam Mosteghanemi has been posting advice to women about how to choose a husband.

The advice, which seems to run along fairly traditional lines, contains statements like: “Do not trust a man who does not obey God” and “If he forgets that God is watching him, he will forget to see your tears when he hurts you….” (More on Al Arabiya or on the author’s Facebook fan page.)

The author’s Memory of the Flesh, published in English by AUC Press, was voted by the Arab Writers Union as one of the top 100 books in Arabic in the last century. However, some critics dispute the author’s talent.

Still, there is little debate about her popularity. Mosteghanemi’s Facebook page has more than 90,000 fans. A friend who used to work at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair said that the author was virtually mobbed at a recent appearance. And, in 2006, Forbes magazine cited Mosteghanemi as the world’s then-best-selling Arabic writer.

Nessyane.Com, Mosteghanemi’s latest title, is forthcoming in English next year from Bloomsbury-Qatar. According to BQFP, it is “a literary examination of male abuse of women in the Arab world. She advises Arab women on how they should/could forget Arab men who exploit them.”