THE SLEEPING WORLD

A coming of age story set in Franco’s Spain: An incisive debut novel set in 70s Spain after the death of dictator Francisco Franco—amidst riots, protests, and uprising as the suppressed country awakens to freedom—about a young woman desperately searching for her brother, willing to risk everything and everyone around her to find him.

Casarojas, 1975. When the police show up at Mosca’s grandmother’s door, they don’t have to speak. In silence, they hand over grandson Alexis’ medallion; in silence Mosca and her grandmother prepare a memorial service for a body they’ll never see. Alexis has become one of the ‘disappeared,’ taken by dictator Francisco Franco's government for alleged subversive actions, granted a place at the family altar next to pictures of his and Mosca’s parents—all of whom will never come home again.

Spain, 1977. Francisco Franco is dead, and for the first time in a generation, the repressed country celebrates freedom. Bootleg punk music oozes out of illegal basement bars, fascists fight anarchists for political control, students riot against the old government, the undecided new order, against the university, against themselves… Spurred by the turmoil around them, four university students do something that carries the rebellion too far and sends them spiraling out of Casarojas. Among them is Mosca, intelligent, disillusioned, certain beyond doubt that Alexis is alive and willing to do anything—including sacrificing her friends—to find him. Tender and deeply moving, The Sleeping World is a startling debut novel about youth, resistance, and finding freedom in the people around us.

Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes received her BA in Literary Arts from Brown University, her MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and is currently a Ph.D candidate in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. She lived in Spain while researching The Sleeping World and currently lives in Athens, Georgia, with her husband and dog.