SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION 2025 & BY SAWIRIS AWARD WINNER AHMED AL-MALAWANY. To preserve national resources, an unnamed totalitarian regime implements a terrifying solution: forcing half the population to sleep for an entire day while the other half wakes, controlled by a microchip embedded under the skin. For Akram, the public lottery turns into a living nightmare-assigning him a waking cycle completely opposite to his beloved wife, Hala. For two agonizing years, they live in the same house but never meet; one always awake while the other remains a helpless, snoring body. In Happy Dreams, Ahmed Al-Malawany delivers a brilliant, deeply poignant dystopian masterwork. What begins as a desperate bureaucratic fight to reunite with his wife soon spirals into a breathtaking, mind-bending rebellion against absolute state power, proving that love remains the ultimate disruption to systemic control.