Shift Sleepers

Deep in a European forest, a varied group of people come together: frontier workers, smugglers, refugees, asylum seekers, inspectors, artists, musicians, actors, journalists, scholarship holders, logisticians, students and ghosts. They arrive from all over, and together they represent the present moment.

Their conversations range across origins and justice, the body and the state, import and export, homeland and migration. They also talk about happiness, music and death. Swiss writer Dorothee Elmiger uses the novel to address contested issues of our time, and she develops a new language for these discussions that has not been heard before in contemporary German literature.

The book works almost like a written performance piece. Characters bring their memories and experiences into one another's stories, sometimes through reported letters or phone calls, even when the speaker also seems to be present in the room. It raises questions rather than offering answers, weighing personal concerns about bodies, lives and relationships against larger issues such as migration, justice and global trade.