He Sleeps A Novel

Bertrand, a young African-American anthropologist, has ostensibly come to Senegal to do field research. In truth, he left his home in Denver to gain a fresh perspective on his troubled marriage. Struggling to fit in with his new Senegalese family--Alaine, his wife Kene, and their young daughter--Bertrand finds himself, for the first time in his life, haunted by surreal and increasingly violent dreams. His waking hours are no less sinister; unwittingly, it seems, Bertrand has become caught in the tension--sexual and otherwise--building between the married couple.

Reginald McKnight teaches at the University of Michigan. He has received an NEA Grant, an O. Henry Award, a Whiting Award, and the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. His previous work includes Moustapha's Eclipse, I Get on the Bus, The Kind of Light That Shines on Texas, and White Boys.

"A sly, deep, perverse study of black middle-class alientation...Subtle and beautifully tuned. McKnight has fused poetic structure with the suspense thriller." --The New York Times Book Review

"Extraordinary...With fluid, frank authority, McKnight addresses the sticky ironies of racial and national identity." --The Seattle Times

"The book itself seems blessed....McKnight's novel pays homage to the African literary tradition at the same time it takes on a hallucinatory life of its own." --Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio

"McKnight forces us to think about race, sex, denial, but even more significantly, he forces us to feel." --Los Angeles Times

"An extraordinary novel, technically daring and thematically subtle and complicated. Bertrand's loneliness transcends race and time." --Ha Jin, author of Waiting