A Sudanese writer begins to suspect that one of his most idiosyncratic characters from a recent novel resembles, uncannily and terrifyingly, 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.