Not Dead But Sleeping

by Anna Della Subin

Prompted by the 2011 Egyptian uprising, this book-length essay on the cultural politics of sleep takes Tawfiq al-Hakim’s 1933 play The People of the Cave as its starting point in an exploration of the speculative, revolutionary potential of sleep.

192 pages, Paperback

Published April 24, 2018

About the author

Anna Della Subin writes about sleepwalkers, grave worship, imperial Ethiopian court etiquette, visions of the flood, thirteenth-century oculists, occultists, cricket, ritualized mutiny, Dr. Death's childhood, dreams of 9/11, the politics of the afterlife, 300-year naps.

She is a Senior Editor at Bidoun, the award-winning publishing and curatorial initiative focused on the Middle East and its diasporas. Anna Della studied philosophy and classics at the University of Chicago and the history of religion at Harvard Divinity School.

Accidental Gods, a history of men inadvertently turned into deities, is forthcoming from Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt in the US and Granta in the UK.

Reviews

[Abdelaziz AlMulla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!!

[Manish Goregaokar]

That was ... interesting

Really good writing, though I wasn't fully familiar with the context to get some of the deeper meanings I think.

> They slept the sleep of Endymion, but the moonlight, unrequited in her love, could not reach them

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my normal cup of tea but a fine cup indeed