Mosteghanemi’s Black Suits You: A True Love Betrayed by Contradictions

“Alasawd Yaliko Beki” or “Black Suits You” is a term chosen by the heroine of Ahlam Mosteghanemi’s new novel to conceal deep sadness on the demise of father and brother who were victims of terrorism. Very soon, our heroine Hala, was captured by the incantation of love at the hands of a rich man while she was fleeing her sadness from teaching class to music and celebrity.

A “Love Story” whose secret lies in the fact that Mosteghanemi started from the end lamenting a great broken love of a couple who didn’t meet by accident, rather by Talal, the lover hero, persistence in pursuing Hala and surround her life with dark violet tulip flowers matching her sadness.

He succeeded is capturing her attention though she was greatly committed to work to withstand the pains of losing her father and brother and even the homeland after she had chosen to leave Algeria to Syria  -her mother’s country- where she thinks she finds hope and safety.

As in all her literary works, Mosteghanemi novel is abundant with warms words and expressions that reveal the components of the soul and the skill to have her sentences enriched by saying of renowned men of letters, revealing a refine culture which yet couldn’t protect her novel from “setbacks”.

Between the lines a striking love ended in separation of lovers, Mosteghanemi put expressed her political position regarding terrorists and how the Algerian government reacted to them, but she thought she was neutral.

However, she was trapped by the mess of contradictions; once she was against terrorists who targeted artists, Journalists, a civil servant and even one ever thinks of consider them as Takfiris, and again she sympathized with them over being tortured by the Algerian Army.

However, a reader of Mosteghanemi’s novel will soon realize that most of her heroes are victims of the Takfiri mentality!

Ibrahim Zaaboub