The Dream Hotel
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025
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Beschreibung des Verlags
* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 *
* A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK MARCH 2025 *
Sara is at the airport, travelling home from a work conference. Out of nowhere she's pulled aside by agents from the Risk Assessment Administration. Their algorithm has determined that she's an immediate threat to her husband, and must be kept under observation at a retention centre for twenty-one days.
The evidence? Data collected from her dreams.
When she arrives at the centre, she discovers that each deviation from their strict and ever-changing rules – loitering in the hallway, a 'non-compliant hairstyle' – results in her stay being extended. Desperate to return to her family, Sara must make a choice. Does she play by their rules, or risk taking matters into her own hands?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lalami (The Other Americans) delivers a stirring dystopian tale of dwindling privacy and freedom in the digital age. In the late 2030s, Sara T. Hussein, 38, a Muslim American art archivist, is detained by officials from the Risk Assessment Administration, who claim data recorded by her Dreamsaver implant, which was originally developed to treat sleep apnea, predicts she will murder her husband. She's held at a repurposed elementary school for "observation," which stretches on for nearly a year, and forced to work in the de facto prison's laundry room. "Retainees," as prisoners like Sara are called, are promised their freedom if they're compliant and they stop dreaming about potential crimes, but she's released only after making a nuisance by organizing a work stoppage. She returns home to her husband and twin toddlers, who urge her to stay out of trouble, but she immediately starts planning to help her friends at the retention center regain their freedom, partnering with a former retainee whom she met inside. The premise calls to mind Philip K. Dick's The Minority Report, but Lalami's version is chillingly original, echoing widespread fears about the abuse of surveillance technology, and she balances high-concept speculative elements with deep character work. This surreal story feels all too plausible.
