Failing to leave a trace

IT is a cold night in the late 1940s and Meelya, a 23 year-old Lebanese woman, is dreaming of her wedding day and of her husband, a cultivated Palestinian named Mansour. But her dreams are confused, blurring into memories and at times even seeming to foretell the future, and her obsession with them leaves Mansour — let alone the reader — puzzled and disappointed.

Eschewing conventional chapters, As Though She Were Sleeping is divided into three long sections delineating the first, second, and third nights of Meelya’s dreaming. Within this structure, Elias Khoury tells the story of Meelya’s family and upbringing, her curious marriage and the grand narrative of revolt and dispossession which characterises Arab, in particular Palestinian, history during this time.