Sleep Phase - by Mohamed Kheir (Paperback)

About the Book

The story of a translator released from prison who wants little more than to resume his work, Mohamed Kheir's latest is a tale of returning to a home you do not recognize, a place where the forces (and faces) of investment violently collide with the wounds of recent history.

Book Synopsis

After seven years in prison, Warif is released to a changed Cairo. Freedom so far has been endless, inscrutable meetings with official-looking strangers, trying to get his job as a translator back. This new Cairo, busy with expats and bureaucrats, is proving disorienting: What is he supposed to make of these self-assured newcomers who are so certain of his obsolescence, his subjugation, his solitude? They seem happy to provide him with a salary, if he's willing to give up the work that gave his life meaning. As his encounters more-and-more resemble interrogations and the futility of trying to escape the system set against him threatens to suffocate him, Warif escapes into the vivid colors of the city, looking deeper and deeper into the food, the people, the buildings, and the flowers, until what's real blurs into fantasy.

Review Quotes

Longlisted for the National Book Award

"Dreams and reality blur in this caustic and Kafkaesque tale from Egyptian author Kheir (Slipping). . . . This eerie and taut tale will leave readers with plenty to chew on."

--Publishers Weekly

Praise for Mohamed Kheir and Slipping

"A partly real, partly fantastical depiction of post-revolutionary Cairo and Alexandria as seen through the stories of a struggling journalist, a former exile and a difficult love affair. Featuring giant flowers bigger than people and episodes of walking on water, the fantastical in this novel feels as true to the Cairo of today as the parts that are lifted from life."

--Yasmine El Rashidi, New York Times

"Connecting the fragmentary and seemingly contradictory details of the novel's architecture makes for a thrilling read. It would take many passes to join every last piece of the puzzle, but as any puzzler knows, part of the fun comes from those small epiphanies that get us a tiny step closer to illumination"
--Chicago Review of Books

"Push[es] both its characters and its readers to extend their minds beyond the limits of what's possible."
--Seattle Times

"As the title suggests, this novel's form is elusive, its language at times meltingly beautiful, or sophomoric in a slapstick way. I was especially struck by its ending, doubly surprising in such a surreal, fragmented novel whose plot had at times felt distant from it."
--Hannah Gold, The Millions