The novel “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress was published for the first time in 1993. It’s an expanded version of a novella with the same title published in 1991. It’s the first novel in the Sleepless, or Beggars, series.

Roger Camden is rich enough to pay for genetic modifications that allow creating what he thinks is his perfect daughter. He discovers an experiment that aims to create people who need no sleep and also obtains that genetic modification for his daughter Leisha. However, his wife Elizabeth also conceived another daughter whose genetic makeup is 100% natural.

As she grows up, Leisha becomes involved in the growing Sleepless community, who have a significant advantage over the Sleepers and are achieving success in all fields. The Sleepless are the perfect champions of yagaism, which theorizes a society based on contracts of mutual usefulness. In their view, the people they call beggars don’t enjoy consideration but among them there are those who hate the Sleepless for their advantages and are even willing to use violence against them.