by Marie-Christine Tayah
Journalist
Luigi A. Kohli, author of Aletheia, a Ben-Hur saga, left the corporate world to pursue a lifelong passion for storytelling. Inspired by epic cinema and ancient history, he reimagines the Ben-Hur legacy with bold vision and historical depth. In this exclusive interview with This is Beirut, he shares the journey behind the saga.
Luigi A. Kohli, author of Aletheia, a Ben-Hur saga, followed a dream that never left him. After years in the corporate world, he found the courage to step away and embrace the calling he had carried since youth: to write. What began as a long-held fascination with epic films and ancient history transformed into a powerful, imaginative continuation of the Ben-Hur legacy. Thus, Aletheia, a Ben-Hur saga, was born. Blending historical depth with narrative flair, Kohli brings a fresh voice to a timeless story. In this conversation with This is Beirut, he shares the journey, inspiration and vision behind the saga.
Exiled in Parthia, Justus Pilate lives in the shadow of a shattered past as his once-powerful family has been destroyed and the woman he loved is believed to have died a hero. The keys to his freedom lie within reach, yet he dares not use them, knowing they come with a terrible curse. Everything changes when a message arrives: his brother Cassius is alive. But Cassius is no longer the man he was, consumed instead by vengeance and rage that threaten to ignite a new and rising faith, one destined to shape the world through fire and blood. As prophecy looms and the stakes rise, Justus is drawn into a struggle far greater than he ever imagined, where the fate of his brother and the course of history hang in the balance.
Interview with Luigi A. Kohli
How did you get started with the adventure of writing Journey?
My first career after graduation was as a technical writer, writing training manuals and other technical materials. But ever since I was a teenager, I had a passion for fiction, especially classic Hollywood epics from the 1950s and 1960s. Those films fascinated me because they were rooted in history, yet felt like fantasy. Stories like Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments or Quo Vadis seemed like tales from another world, yet they were inspired by real events. Ben-Hur has always been my favorite movie.
Even though my professional life took a different path — in technical writing and business — I never lost that creative desire. At 57, I left the corporate world to finally pursue the story that had lived in me since my youth. I wanted to continue the Ben-Hur narrative. What happens next? That’s what inspired me to start writing. Once I began, I also fell in love with the process: the research, the plot construction and developing the characters.
Who is your audience, in your opinion?
I don’t think there’s a specific age or gender. My story is for anyone who loves history, especially when it’s told within a compelling narrative. It’s about learning something from the past, but through the lens of storytelling.
What was the writing process you adopted as you mixed fiction and reality?
I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong way to do it. I began with the end in mind. My goal was to write a story that, if Lew Wallace, the original author of Ben-Hur, were alive, he’d feel was a worthy continuation. The original story is told from the perspective of a Jewish prince. I wanted to offer a twist, telling the next part from a Roman point of view.
I had two big questions that drove my ending: First, what happened to Pontius Pilate? Second, why did Christianity survive when so many other religions and prophets didn’t?
These questions shaped my narrative. I let them guide me, and then I used historical research from that time period to build a bridge between fiction and reality. It became a creative journey. I had the destination, but not the map. The plot unfolded step by step, almost like pieces of science fiction stitched into a historical epic.
For the full article:
Ben-Hur continues as Aletheia: Faith, Empire & Fiction
