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Miles away in rural France, Anthony Passeron’s family are dealing with a crisis of their own. Their small village is gripped by another epidemic – heroin addiction. Anthony’s uncle Désiré, once the pride of the family, has become one of its many ‘sleeping children’. Often found unconscious on street corners, he is a stranger to his family. As Désiré’s life descends into chaos, the thunder of the AIDS crisis grows closer. These two stories - one intimate, one global - are about to collide.
For readers of Édouard Louis, Douglas Stuart and Annie Ernaux, Sleeping Children is a moving and eye-opening book about shame and the slow poisoning of a family by the secrets it keeps. Exploring the stories of the heroic few who fought for a cure for AIDs and for justice for a community abandoned, it is a radical vision of a history reshaped, retold and remembered.
Author: Anthony Passeron
Paperback Published 10 June 2025 208 pages