Sleep Donation

Sleep Donation

Summary

'Sleep Donation has a dreamlike beauty while remaining ominous and off-kilter. Parts of it gave me nightmares' Stephen King

An epidemic of insomnia has left America crippled with exhaustion.


Thankfully the Slumber Corps agency provides a lifeline, transfusing sleep to sufferers from healthy volunteers. Recruitment manager Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the disaster, has spent the last seven years enlisting new donors. But when she meets the mysterious Donor Y and Baby A – whose sleep can be universally accepted – her faith in the organisation and in her own motives begins to unravel.

Fully illustrated and featuring a brand-new 'Nightmare Appendix', this uncanny and prescient novella from the bestselling author of Swamplandia! will haunt your sleepless nights.

Praise for Sleep Donation:

‘Russell's ability to balance the quirky and the absurd with psychological acumen…turns this unbelievable world into something more than dreamlike’ NPR

‘Russell writes with such assurance and speed that she puts the reader under a spell for the duration of her story’ New York Times

‘Russell has a keen sense of dramatic timing and an even sharper ability to turn an internal state into its own weather system’ Boston Globe

About the author

Karen Russell

Karen Russell is the bestselling author of two novels and several books of short stories. The winner of a MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant, she was also named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists in 2007 and New Yorker’s 20 under 40. Her first novel Swamplandia! was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women's Fiction Prize; her collection St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Her new novel The Antidote will be published in 2025.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more