A Lover, Even If I Don't Belong

It is not easy to love someone, especially when that love is unrequited – to pretend friendship and suppress your feelings while watching them with another. This is Rakan’s experience. As a university student, he meets Flora and is destined to endure the pain of a one-sided love affair, until he is shocked to discover Flora hanging in his apartment!

The shock of this discovery triggers hallucinations and psychological distress. Rakan suddenly opens his eyes to find himself years in the past, changed, with a mysterious tattoo bearing the number 7 on his neck.

Time blurs between reality and imagination, across different worlds. Pain, suffering, longing, remorse, and a loss of identity intertwine with a fantasy of a reunion between Rakan and Flora – a reunion that will never be. Their love story remains incomplete.

Thus begins Rakan’s strange journey. What is the secret of the number 7? And what caused him to travel back in time after Flora’s death?

Lebanese writer Ali Al-Dokhi was born in Lebanon on July 1, 1988. He grew up in the village of Majdal Anjar in the Bekaa Governorate in Lebanon, where he spent his childhood in the district of Zahle. He received his education at the Evangelical School, which helped him to let his thoughts and dreams wander more and more.

Al-Dokhi moved to Beirut, where he completed his undergraduate studies at the American University of Science and Technology, graduating in Banking Sciences. He had many important experiences during his career spanning more than twelve years between written journalism, producing television programs, and presenting his radio program.

During his university studies, which were far from his passion, which is the arts, Ali insisted on reaching his goal and fulfilling his childhood dream through writing, so he started working on the “Al-Nashra Fann” website with the great Lebanese media figure, Hala Al-Murr.

2012 was a fateful year for Al-Dokhi, as he entered the backstage of artistic and entertainment television programs through the main door.

Al-Dokhi moved to Dubai, where he currently works as a content producer and journalist in the most important Arab events, where the most important Arab and international stars are present.

Today, after all the years of work and effort, Ali Al-Dokhi has finished his first novel, Lover Even If You Are Not, which he appears as a writer for the first time.