Overview

The world is divided into those who can sleep and those who can’t. What is it like to live with chronic insomnia? For Marie Darrieussecq, not sleeping began after the birth of her first child and continues more than twenty years later. In Sleepless, she recounts her own experiences alongside those of fellow insomniacs, mostly writers, some of whom claim a connection between insomnia and creativity. With her inimitable humour, she describes her countless attempts to find a remedy, including consulting a somnologist. Darrieussecq discusses bedrooms, beds, the homeless, refugees, trauma, our wakefulness online, and how our relationship with animals is connected to whether we can sleep. Sleepless will awaken you to the otherness of our world. Insomnia feeds off this bewildering feeling: there is something else.

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9781922790088

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Reviews

'Sleepless is a feast. Darrieussecq brings a world of personal experience to an examination of insomnia from every possible perspective, from the bodily to the cultural. Her range of reference is extraordinary. The result is intoxicating.' * Michael McGirr, author of Snooze: The Lost Art of Sleep * 'Amid the torrent of publications in the new sleep science, this is the only book I know that concedes to sleep its proper majesty and its own dark poetry.' * J. M. Coetzee * 'A funny, moving, metaphysical and novelistic self-portrait that is also a portrait of our times.' * Elle * 'A masterful work on the art of sleep.' * Les Inrockuptibles * 'An exciting and poetic work, both an intimate narrative and a meditative essay.' * Telerama * 'An exhilarating book that kept me up and got me thinking.' * Le Canard Enchaine * 'A personal meditation that opens your eyes, in every sense of the word...Beware: this book may make you lose sleep!' * Ouest France * 'A hypnotic, inexhaustible book.' * Philosophie Magazine * 'In this book on insomnia, part essay and part autobiography, Marie Darrieussecq calls on many writers who have suffered from not closing their eyes at night ('four o'clock in the morning literature'); she lists the techniques she has tried in vain in order to get to sleep, and talks frankly about her addiction to alcohol and sleeping pills. She links her personal case to the global syndrome of our era-permanent internet connection.' * Liberation * 'Marie Darrieussecq opens our eyes, although all she wants to do is close her own eyes, and sleep...She gives us an account of everything to do with insomnia, both the rational and irrational aspects.' * Le Journal du Dimanche * 'Sleepless is an wonderful book, between prose and document, reflection and quotation, ranging from Kant to the film Alien, from Kafka to Gilles Barbier, from Gabon to the Basque country, and through various hotel rooms occupied by sleepless nights...If what we read is extremely intimate and personal, everything about us, everything in us, can also be found in these pages. One can read Sleepless to project oneself into an insomniac sister; one can read it for the author's sparkling stories and analyses, for her incredibly smart readings of Kafka and Perec, or for her reflections on capitalism, burn-out and the race for productivity that repudiates everything that does not fit into its master plan. Above all, one can read Sleepless for the staggering object it is.' * Diacritik * 'What a delight: a book that is erudite, funny, sensitive, moving, forthright, intimate.' * Paris-Normandie *

'Amid the torrent of publications in the new sleep science, this is the only book I know that concedes to sleep its proper majesty and its own dark poetry.' * J. M. Coetzee * 'A funny, moving, metaphysical and novelistic self-portrait that is also a portrait of our times.' * Elle * 'A masterful work on the art of sleep.' * Les Inrockuptibles * 'An exciting and poetic work, both an intimate narrative and a meditative essay.' * Telerama * 'An exhilarating book that kept me up and got me thinking.' * Le Canard Enchaine * 'A personal meditation that opens your eyes, in every sense of the word...Beware: this book may make you lose sleep!' * Ouest France * 'A hypnotic, inexhaustible book.' * Philosophie Magazine * 'In this book on insomnia, part essay and part autobiography, Marie Darrieussecq calls on many writers who have suffered from not closing their eyes at night ('four o'clock in the morning literature'); she lists the techniques she has tried in vain in order to get to sleep, and talks frankly about her addiction to alcohol and sleeping pills. She links her personal case to the global syndrome of our era-permanent internet connection.' * Liberation * 'Marie Darrieussecq opens our eyes, although all she wants to do is close her own eyes, and sleep...She gives us an account of everything to do with insomnia, both the rational and irrational aspects.' * Le Journal du Dimanche * 'Sleepless is an wonderful book, between prose and document, reflection and quotation, ranging from Kant to the film Alien, from Kafka to Gilles Barbier, from Gabon to the Basque country, and through various hotel rooms occupied by sleepless nights...If what we read is extremely intimate and personal, everything about us, everything in us, can also be found in these pages. One can read Sleepless to project oneself into an insomniac sister; one can read it for the author's sparkling stories and analyses, for her incredibly smart readings of Kafka and Perec, or for her reflections on capitalism, burn-out and the race for productivity that repudiates everything that does not fit into its master plan. Above all, one can read Sleepless for the staggering object it is.' * Diacritik * 'What a delight: a book that is erudite, funny, sensitive, moving, forthright, intimate.' * Paris-Normandie *

Author Information

Marie Darrieussecq was born in Bayonne in 1969 and is recognised as one of the leading voices of contemporary French literature. Her first novel, Pig Tales, was translated into thirty-five languages. She has written more than twenty books. Text has published Tom Is Dead, All the Way, Men, Being Here: The Life of Paula Modersohn-Becker, Our Life in the Forest, The Baby, Crossed Lines and Sleepless. In 2013 Marie Darrieussecq was awarded the Prix Médicis and the Prix des Prix for her novel Men She has written art criticism and journalism for a number of publications, including Libération and Charlie Hebdo, is a translator from English and has practised as a psychoanalyst. Sleepless is her third non-fiction title published by Text. Marie lives in Paris. mariedarrieussecq.com

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