Breaking world records that have been steadfast for years, the 24-year-old young Algerian writer Sarah Ravens caused an unparalleled uproar in Algeria and France, and made the event because of her books, which achieved large figures in the number of readings on the Internet and the number of sales in French bookstores, where she became in a very short time Among the most read Algerian writers throughout history.
Reserve sales exceeded
Ravens, a pseudonym, published 3 novels in French, all of which topped the list of best-selling books and e-book selling sites in France, until the French press dubbed her “The Phenomenon.” Her first novel, “Captive” or “The Hostage” in Arabic in its first part, achieved more than From 9 million readings on the Wattpad platform dedicated to publishing stories, books and novels digitally, as for the second part of the novel, it has achieved more than 8 million readings on the same platform.
This impressive success of the novel “The Hostage”, with its first and second parts, made the French publishing houses race to print the novel, although it is freely available on the Internet. However, this did not prevent the paper version of the novel from continuing to achieve amazing numbers, as 350,000 copies of the first part were sold. More than a million copies of the second part were printed at the end of last January, and it was translated into 9 languages, surpassing the sales of Prince Harry’s “Reserve” book. As for its profits from sales, sources suggested that it exceeded 3.5 million euros in France without the other European countries in which the novel was published. Such as Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
mysterious girl
The writer Sarah, who called herself “la fille floue” or “the mysterious girl” in Arabic, her story is really shrouded in mystery from all sides, no one knows her real name, and information about her personal life is very scarce, except that she is 24 years old and works An administrator in a sports hall in Algiers, her beginnings with writing were in 2019 through the Canadian “Wattpad” platform, targeting young readers in European countries.
Despite the great success achieved by the young writer in France, Canada and some European countries, her novels did not become widespread in her country, Algeria, in which she resides, and about that, cultural activist Ali Hiddouche says: “Many avoid talking about it, because it achieved a break with Algerian writing and cast a shadow on it. Those who claim to be great writers, and broke many restrictions and transcended the negativity spread by many who rejoice in spreading negativity on social media!! And made its way to the world from Algiers.