The Sleep Thief

‘Sleep thief is what the interrogator called me. I’ll never forget that. I would steal a few seconds of sleep so I could remain steadfast before them. The name stuck; I even dreamt about it, the same dream, night after night. I woke up not knowing what to do and drenched in sweat.’ ‘The Sleep Thief’ follows the life of Gharib (“the Stranger”) Haifawi as he comes of age, is drawn into resistance, makes friends, meets lovers, pushes back against traditional values, longs to be free of the labels and expectations that burden him, rails against the commodification of suffering, and dreams of a Palestinian identity that will transcend sorrow. Ibtisam Azem is a Palestinian novelist and journalist. She has published two novels in Arabic: ‘Sariq al-Nawm’ (‘The Sleep Thief’, 2011) and ‘Sifr al-Ikhtifaa’ (‘The Book of Disappearance’, 2014). ‘The Book of Disappearance’ has been published in English, German, and Italian. She lives in New York.