Human genetics remains a largely unexplored frontier in which our dabbling becomes an ethical debate of playing God. Before CRISPR gene editing technology was mainstream, the 1993 sci-fi novel Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress is set between 2008 to the 2030s and offers social and ethical commentary on present-day genetic engineering. The novel expands from the original novella published in 1991, which introduces a genetically engineered society of a designer baby boom that doesn’t sleep. Kress’ world of the Sleepless Series depicts Earth divided by the genetically modified “Sleepless” and the normal minority of “Sleepers” as her world-building and commentary was featured in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and awarded the Hugo and Nebula Award.
Genetic modification, or gene mods, in Kress’ world, mimics the familiar buzz of designer babies and embryonic editing. Genemods began as a confidential and highly elite procedure as wealthy couples and political elites began to look for mods beyond hair and eye color, muscle tone, and IQ. The sleepless mod came in waves as appeal and curiosity grew for a modification that would allow humans to live without sleep. In fact, they physically can’t sleep and live 24-hour days. As the Sleepers dream, unforeseen repercussions of a simple mod arise and create mental and physical elitism as Sleepless cultivate higher physical and mental capacities with all hours of development as well as super-human regenerative properties that place their life expectancy well past Sleepers.
The protagonist and case study, Leisha Camden, was born in 2008 as the 21st baby to have the sleepless gene mod, spearheading the sleepless movement as the daughter of a high-profile financier that sponsors Yaigaiism, a budding moral and social theory that values objectivity to assign dignity based on the product of an individual’s efforts. Leisha is framed as a political experiment as we follow her life witnessing the social rift between Sleepless and Sleepers progress into prejudice and violence as the Sleepless dominate in industry and society. As Leisha serves as a case study for the sleepless experience, she grapples with the socioeconomic philosophy and bioethics of elite gene mods and the relationship the Sleepless have to normal society. Sleepless activism culminates into the talks of a Sleepless utopia known as Sanctuary and challenges Leisha’s struggle to bridge the two societies.
As the Sleepless withdraw from society, Sleepers recognize the indirect punishment of the global economy without their progress or competition. The fictional philosophy of Yagaiism serves as a moral thread of objectivism in a society where all “men” are not created equally in light of gene editing and playing God. The title references the motif of equality and social obligation by quoting dialogue between Leisha and a Sleepless activist asking, “‘What do productive and responsible members of society owe the “beggars in Spain,” the unproductive masses who have nothing to offer except need?’” Here, the idea of “beggars in Spain” generally encompasses the ethics of elitism that pioneers excellence at the expense of equality.
Beggars in Spain is the definition of sci-fi ahead of its time especially when our current events are overlapping the narrative predictions. Personally, Kress’ writing style and integration of social and political theory surrounding innovation was the gateway to the unique and uncanny quality of the sci-fi genre as a possibility space for experimentation and reflection. What aspirations, inventions, and fears were budding for the time period, and do they represent whispers of the past or the future?
