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Beggars in Spain

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Beggars in Spain

By: Nancy Kress
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
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About this listen

Nebula Award Winner, Novella, 1991

In a world where the slightest edge can mean the difference between success and failure, Leisha Camden is beautiful, extraordinarily intelligent, and one of a growing number of human beings who have been genetically modified to never require sleep.

Once considered interesting anomalies, now Leisha and the other "Sleepless" are outcasts, victims of blind hatred, political repression, and shocking mob violence meant to drive them from human society and, ultimately, from Earth itself.

But Leisha Camden has chosen to remain behind in a world that envies and fears her "gift," a world marked for destruction by a deadly conspiracy of freedom and revenge.

©1993 Nancy Kress (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Fantasy Science Fiction Fiction

Critic Reviews

"Superb....An exquisite saga of biological advantages." ( Denver Post)
"A depth of imagination unusual even among science fiction writers." ( Analog)
"[T]hrilling drama, compelling dialectic." ( Kirkus Reviews)
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Beggars in Spain - Nancy Kress. 1993. This was long and boring. Genetic modification, only affordable for the rich, creates a class of sleepless and privileged children, 21 in fact. The Sleepless are exceptionally beautiful, gifted and nigh immortal. They use the extra waking hours to increase their wealth and power. The first part covers the life of Leisha Camden. The Sleepless retreat to a private sanctuary built by Jennifer. Complex relationships, new characters and much moral philosophising.
The reference to the Beggars in Spain is a discussion between Tony and Leisha in which Tony challenges Leisha about the concept of giving to the poor, " the leeches who think we owe them blood because we are better than they are" "what do we owe the grasping and non-productive needy?"
Tony asks "What if you walk down a street in Spain and a hundred beggars each want a dollar and you say no and they have nothing to trade you but they're so rotten with anger about what you have that they knock you down and grab it and then beat you out of sheer envy and despair?"
This is considered a classic. I found it heavy going.

What do we owe the beggars?

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