Sarah Cypher

In progress is a second novel. In the spirit of John Berger’s From A to X and some of Ursula K. LeGuin’s short fiction, the new novel takes place in an almost-but-not-quite-recognizable Middle Eastern country, where two young men are struggling to escape to the Far East in search of work. What holds them back may not be poverty, ideology, or the border guards—because stronger than any of these are what the boys call the Three Loves: family, home, and Leila, a young woman who may or may not be an informer for the secret police.