Sleep Project

On New Year's Eve, Marwan Khaled decides to leave Berlin for good, leaving behind everything—what he'll do and how he'll do it all. Everything except his young cat, who will become a constant source of loneliness. In Tunis, he resolves to complete his mother's family's extraordinary project: opening his apartment overlooking Habib Bourguiba Avenue, to offer a night's sleep to the sleepless residents of his city.
The novel's records are not surprising regarding this project, which Marwan announces while wandering the city streets naked, captured by colored lenses. In the dimly lit hall, the beautiful heads surrender, their faces and secrets surfacing.
The inclusion of fantastical creatures serves to alleviate the loneliness of the novel's protagonists, or perhaps to give voice to their madness, like Mr., Bora, and Raven. Despite their differences, the protagonists are alike. They are products of their past, and confusion is their only constant as they struggle to find their way out. The story begins when the narrator encounters a young woman at an English airport. The narrative is largely told by the protagonist, who confuses the young woman's face with that of her mother, Wafaa, his former lover. The young woman's face reminds him of her mother, and the memory of her takes him back to the years they spent together on Cooper Street, in the closed rooms where they hid to love each other, dream, and engage in heated discussions.