The acclaimed French debut, now translated into a dozen languages, about the impact of AIDS on one working-class family and on French society. For readers of Édouard Louis, Didier Eribon and Douglas Stuart.

It is 1981. As a wave of puzzling medical cases sweeps across the US, a Parisian doctor is presented with a rare case of a disease long thought to be eradicated. It marks the beginning of a race on both sides of the Atlantic to make sense of a deadly virus that will define a generation. Miles away in rural France, Anthony Passeron's family are dealing with a crisis of their own. Their small village is gripped by another epidemic - heroin addiction. Anthony's uncle Désiré, once the pride of the family, has become one of its many 'sleeping children'. Often found unconscious on street corners, he is a stranger to his family. As Désiré's life descends into chaos, the thunder of the AIDS crisis grows closer. These two stories - one intimate, one global - are about to collide. For readers of Édouard Louis, Douglas Stuart and Annie Ernaux, Sleeping Children is a moving and eye-opening book about shame and the slow poisoning of a family by the secrets it keeps. Exploring the stories of the heroic few who fought for a cure for AIDs and for justice for a community abandoned, it is a radical vision of a history reshaped, retold and remembered.

Details

ISBN13: 9781035026494
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 208
Edition:
Publication Date: 10 Jun 2025
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 21.6(H)x13.6(L)x1.9(W)228
Weight (gm): 228

Author Biography

Anthony Passeron was born in Nice in 1983. He teaches French Literature and Humanities at a secondary school. Les enfants endormis (Sleeping Children) is his first novel.

Reviews

Without ever raising your voice, you have shattered the family silence that scabbed over tragedy and produced a work so powerful, so moving that it lingers long after reading. Magnificent! -- Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
An extraordinarily powerful and beautifully written story about class, family secrets and shame -- Prospect Magazine