VENUE
Scheps Library, Room 457,
Department of Anthropology
Schermerhorn Extension
Campus Map
Advanced registration by Thursday, December 1,
is required for all attendees, including CU/BC ID holders.
Join the Center for Palestine Studies for a celebration the English Translation of Ibtisam Azem’s experimental first novel, The Sleep Thief , with Azem and Ammiel Alcalay.
‘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.
The event will be followed by a book signing by Ibtisam Azem.
Copies of The Sleep Thief will be available for purchase by credit card or digital wallet.
IBTISAM AZEM is a novelist and journalist. She has published two novels in Arabic translated into English, The Sleep Thief (And Other Stories, 2026) and The Book of Disappearance (Syracuse University Press, 2019), longlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, and a short story collection, Mudun al-Gharib (Cities of the Stranger) (Takween Publishing, 2025). Her works have been translated into 12 languages. Azem’s short stories and essays have appeared in several anthologies and journals, including Evergreen Review, Jadaliyya (where she was an editor in the Arabic section), Journal of Palestine Studies, and World Literature Today.
AMMIEL ALCALAY is a poet, novelist, translator, critic, scholar, political commentator, and author of some thirty books. Controlled Demolition: a work in four books; Follow the Person: Archival Encounters, and Nasser Rabah’s Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece (co-translated with Khaled al-Hilli and Emna Zghal), have all come out in 2025, with Imperial Abhorrences / For Palestine, a collaboration with the Palestinian artist Kholoud Hammad, out in 2026. He regularly writes on politics, most recently for Middle East Eye. Alcalay is Distinguished Professor at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, and his work on Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, founded by him in 2009, was recognized with a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award.