The book is about a woman who loses her voice when she is stabbed in the neck by Islamists, at the same time as she is forced to watch her family being killed. It takes place during the civil war in Algeria in the 1990s.
A woman named Saada Arbane claims that the book tells her personal story – which she claims to have confided in the author's wife, who is a psychologist. She is seeking 2.2 million kronor in damages and says it is "totally unthinkable" that the similarities between the story and her life are a coincidence.
A first court hearing is scheduled to take place on May 7. The publisher does not want to comment on the lawsuit. But the publisher Antoine Gallimard has previously defended the book, and has claimed that it has been subjected to defamation campaigns since it was banned in Algeria. The plot, characters, and heroine are entirely fictional, according to him.
The author was born in 1970 and made his debut in 2013 with "The Meursault Case", a kind of dialogue with Albert Camus' "The Stranger". That book was also awarded the Goncourt Prize in the category of best debut novel.
"Houris" will be published in Swedish translation by Tranan publishing house next autumn.
