Palestinian Fiction: Ibtisam Azem for 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 experimental first novel from International Booker-Prize longlisted Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem, 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 based in New York. She has published a short story collection and two novels: The Sleep Thief (2026) and The Book of Disappearance (2024). The Book of Disappearance has been translated into ten languages.

Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi poet, novelist, scholar, and literary translator. He has published three poetry collections and five novels. His most recent work is Notes from a Lost Country. He is an associate professor of Arabic literature at New York University.