"A Sudanese writer begins to suspect that one of his most idiosyncratic characters from a recent novel resembles – in an uncanny and terrifying way – a real person he has never met. Since he condemned this character to an untimely death in the novel, should he attempt to save this real man from a similar fate? Elsir takes his readers on a terrifying journey through the unsettled mind of an author who loses control over his own creations and sense of reality. Set in both sides of Khartoum – the bustling capital city and the neglected, poverty-stricken underbelly – this is a novel of unreliable narrators, of insane asylums and of the dubious relationship between imagination and reality."