Publisher's Synopsis
Fin has just been sacked from his mediocre job on a mediocre Cairo newspaper, but now he's on the scent of a story to end all stories. With little more than a rumpled linen suit to his name, he sets out on the trail of Farouk, the mercurial teller of tales who alone knows what Fin wants to hear, but who has just managed to get himself kidnapped. Fuelled by whisky and a thousand glasses of tea, Fin launches himself into the dusty delirium of the city. He may succeed in tracing the succulent kebab which could lead to Farouk; he may find out what really happened to Omar's daughter; he may even evade the unwelcome attentions of the burly American security man, but will Fin ever discover the full story of what Skinhead Said found at the end of the tunnel beneath his house near the pyramids?
The End of Sleep is a magical, heart-warming novel about a man desperately seeking a beginning, a middle and an end. It is a tale of comic verve that also offers a humane portrait of a shabbily magnificent city. Infused with the warmth of Egyptian hospitality and tradition, The End of Sleep is a beautifully written exploration of the art of story-telling.
