The Novelistic Universe of Rida Lamrini

My novels rarely focus on peaceful existences. They often begin at the moment when a balance breaks.

An unexpected encounter, a disappearance, a long-buried secret, a betrayal, an exile, a war, sometimes a simple twist of fate: it takes very little for a life to change direction.

What interests me is not only what happens to the characters, but what events reveal about them. Circumstances bring to light their contradictions, their fears, their loyalties, their renunciations, but also their capacity to reinvent themselves.

True suspense is born right there.

Memory holds a central place in my writing. It is never a simple return to the past. It is a force that acts in the present.

We are made of memories, oblivions, transmissions, silences, and sometimes wounds that we no longer even know how to name. Some characters seek to recover a forgotten part of their history; others attempt to free themselves from it.

Between memory and oblivion, their destiny often plays out.

This tension runs through my novels because it runs through our lives.

Love is another guiding thread in my work. Not an idealized love, but a love confronted with time, distance, silences, impossible choices, and the paths life imposes.

I like to explore those moments when feelings clash with reality; when beings continue to love each other without always being able to live together; when bonds transform without completely disappearing.

Love then becomes a way to reveal characters, more than a simple novelistic topic.

The Mediterranean runs almost naturally through my imagination. It connects continents, cultures, languages, and histories. It is a space of passage as much as of separation.

One leaves a country, discovers another. One carries memories, dreams, sometimes wounds across it.

In my novels, it is never a simple backdrop. It accompanies the characters, influences their choices, and carries within itself a collective memory that dialogues with their individual stories.

My novels are sometimes described as psychological thrillers. I understand this reading.

But suspense, for me, is never an end in itself. It serves to reveal human beings. An investigation, a disappearance, a threat, or a mystery only take on their true meaning if they illuminate the deep motivations of the characters.

I prefer a suspense that reveals over a suspense that merely impresses.

We like to categorize books: psychological novel, thriller, historical novel, romance... I understand this need.

Yet when I write, these categories lose their importance. History often joins the intimate. Suspense meets emotion. Reflection dialogues with action.

I do not seek to belong to a particular genre, but to tell stories where multiple dimensions of human experience can coexist.

Each novel can be discovered independently of the others. I hold dear to this freedom.

A reader must be able to enter my universe through any book, without feeling like they are arriving in the middle of a story already underway.

But whoever continues reading gradually discovers echoes, correspondences, returning characters, deepening themes, and questions that shed new light.

My novels dialogue with one another without ever imposing themselves on each other.

I do not consider this universe as a finished territory. Each new book brings an additional voice, perspective, era, or landscape to it.

What remains are not the plots. They are the questions.

It is around these questions that my novelistic universe continues to build itself, book after book. It is this universe, more than the repetition of characters or plots, that links each of my novels.

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