Surrender

by Ray Loriga, Carolina De Robertis (Translator)

Overview

"[A] riveting, and original, achievement."—WIRED

From award-winning Spanish author Ray Loriga comes a dystopian novel about authority, manipulation, and the disappearance of privacy that “calls to mind The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood [and] Blindness by José Saramago” (Alfaguara Prize Winner Citation).

Ten long years have passed since war first broke out, and one couple still does not know the whereabouts of their children, or what their country is even fighting for. They follow orders and their lives go by simply, routinely, until—one day—a mute boy walks onto their property. When the authorities announce that the area needs to be evacuated and that everyone must relocate to “the transparent city,” the three leave together.

At first, the city proves to be a paradise: a stunning glass dome of endless highways, buildings, trains, and markets. Everything its inhabitants need is provided to them—food, protection, shelter—and the family quickly, unquestioningly, settles into their new life. But, soon, a sinister underlay begins to emerge. Neither secrets nor walls are permitted here, and strict order, authoritarian calm, and transparency must always reign supreme.

In a society in which everything private is public, the most chilling portent of our future emerges. Surrender is an urgent novel about dignity and rebellion and the lengths we go to preserve love, hope, and humanity.

"Loriga envisions in this gripping tale an unsettling dystopia in which all secrets are forbidden...This memorable page-turner will appeal to fans of Brave New World."—Publishers Weekly 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328528520
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/25/2020
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	1,008,512
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

RAY LORIGA is an author, screenwriter, and film director. Surrender, which won the prestigious Alfaguara Prize in Spain in 2017, is his third novel to be published in the United States. His previous, Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore, received rave reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Loriga has been translated into fourteen languages. He lives in Madrid.

CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS is the internationally bestselling author of The Gods of Tango, Perla, and The Invisible Mountain. She was raised in England, Switzerland, and California by Uruguayan parents. Her debut novel, The Invisible Mountain, was an international hit that was translated into fourteen languages; it was an O, The Oprah Magazine “2009 Terrific Read,” a San Francisco Chronicle “Best Book of the Year,” and the recipient of Italy’s Rhegium Julii Debut Prize. She is the recipient of a 2012 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her fiction and literary translations have appeared in Granta, Zoetrope: All-Story, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications. She lives in Oakland, California and is currently working on a new novel. You can learn more at www.carolinaderobertis.com
 

Read an Excerpt

There is no justifying our optimism, no signs give us reason to believe things could get better. Our optimism grows by itself, like a weed, after a kiss, a talk, a good wine, though we have very little of that left. Surrender is like that, too: the poison of defeat springs up and grows during a bad day, with the clarity of a bad day, spurred by little things that, in better circumstances, wouldn’t have hurt us and yet, if the final blow happens to come right when we’re at the end of our strength, manages to annihilate us. Suddenly, something that we wouldn’t even have noticed before destroys us, like a trap laid by a hunter whose skill outpaces our own, a trap we didn’t pay attention to because we were distracted by the lure. And yet, why deny that we ourselves, while we could, hunted in the same way, wielding traps, lures, and grotesque but highly effective camouflage.

Anyone who looks carefully at this house’s garden can easily tell that it’s seen better days, that the drained pool isn’t out of place with the buzz of airplanes that punish us nightly, not only here on this property but throughout the valley. When she comes to bed I try to calm her, but the truth is that I know something is collapsing and we won’t be able to build anything new in its place. Each bomb in this war rips open a hole we won’t be able to fill, I know it and she knows it, although we pretend otherwise when it’s time to go to sleep, searching for a peace we no longer find, for a time like before. On some nights, in order to dream better, we remember.
 
*

In that other time, we enjoyed what we thought would be ours forever. The cool waters of the lake—we called it a lake, but it was more like a big pond—not only refreshed us on hot days, but also offered all sorts of games and safe adventures. That last thing, safe adventures, is without a doubt a contradiction we were unaware of at the time.

We had a small rowboat and the boys spent hours in it pretending to be pirates, and sometimes, on summer afternoons, I’d take her out on the water, as we say, and we’d each get lost in our own thoughts, not talking much, but serene.

Yesterday a letter arrived from Augusto, our son, our soldier, and it informs us that a month ago he was still alive, though that doesn’t mean he isn’t dead today. The joy the letter brings us also feeds our fear. Ever since the pulse signals were cut off by the provisional government’s decree, we’ve gone back to waiting for the mail carrier, the way our grandparents did. There is no other form of communication. At least we have month-old news of Augusto, it’s been almost a year since we’ve had word of Pablo. When they left for the front, the pulse signals still kept us constantly in touch with their heartbeats; she said it was almost like having them inside, like when she’d felt them living in her womb. Now we’re forced to dream them into being, in silence. War, for parents, is not the same thing as war for the men who go and fight, it’s a different war. Our only job is to wait. Meanwhile, the garden despairs and dies, worn out. She and I, on the other hand, get up every morning ready and willing.

Our love, in facing this war, is growing stronger.

It’s hard to say now how much we loved each other before; obviously, the kisses at our wedding were sincere, but that sincerity is a part of what we were then, and time has clearly turned us into something else. This very morning, I walked the property to confirm yet again that this place barely resembles what our house used to be. The lake is almost dry; someone, likely the enemy, has dammed the mountain streams. The shores of the lake, once as green as the jungle, are withering.

War doesn’t change anything on its own, it only reminds us, with its noise, that everything changes.

And despite the war—or thanks to the war—we carry on, good morning, good night, one day after another, just like that, one kiss after another, against all logic. The water boils, the heirloom teapot with its crocheted cozy, the last tea bags . . . the little we have left boils, is protected, goes on. Something dies and lives between us, something nameless that we decide, for good reason, to ignore. Passion either ignores misfortune or dies. We’ve made choices; one of them is not to be alone.

Editorial Reviews

12/09/2019

Loriga (Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore) envisions in this gripping tale an unsettling dystopia in which all secrets are forbidden. After 10 years of war, a couple and the child they found wandering the abandoned landscape are evacuated from their home and relocated to “the transparent city.” The glass-domed metropolis protects its citizens from the outside world while providing for their every need. Each wall, ceiling, and floor is see-through; everyone is assigned the same nondescript clothing; and the only prohibition is on “hiding or spying.” As the unnamed male half of the couple, who narrates, begins adjusting to the glimmering new world, where nothing is private and free will is sacrificed to strict order, he begins questioning the monotonous controlled life where “mysteries and desires are devoured” by “excessive visibility.” When the authorities discover he’s shared his concerns with coworkers, they give him a pill that sends him into a deep sleep. He awakens two days later, full of overwhelming feelings of acceptance and happiness despite knowing deep down he has nothing to celebrate. Worse, a renewed swell of resistance puts him at odds with his adopted son. Loriga’s chilling portent of the future will undoubtedly resonate with readers concerned about the erosion of privacy. This memorable page-turner will appeal to fans of Brave New World. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

WINNER OF THE ALFAGUARA PRIZE (SPAIN), 2017 WINNER OF THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD IN TRANSLATION “Ray Loriga is a fascinating cross between Marguerite Duras and Jim Thompson.” —Pedro Almodóvar "[A] riveting, and original, achievement." —WIRED, "13 Must-Read Books for Spring" "Loriga envisions in this gripping tale an unsettling dystopia in which all secrets are forbidden... [His] chilling portent of the future will undoubtedly resonate with readers concerned about the erosion of privacy. This memorable page-turner will appeal to fans of Brave New World." —Publishers Weekly  “[Surrender is] a Kafkaesque and Orwellian story about authority and collective manipulation, a parable on our societies exposed to the gaze and judgment of all. Through the use of a modest and thoughtful voice, with unexpected bursts of humor, the author constructs a luminous fable about exile, loss, paternity and attachment.” —Alfaguara Prize Winner Citation  “Part allegory, part dystopian nightmare, Ray Loriga's Surrender narrates one man's futile search for a separate peace under a totalitarian regime . . . A descendant of Orwell's Winston Smith and Kafka's nameless protagonists, he endures his country's authoritarian whimsies with stoicism and surface submission. His voice is deadpan, non-confrontational, yet every so often he sneaks in a telling comment, slyly critical of the authorities. The challenge for the translator, Carolina De Robertis, which she handles with terrific aplomb, is to capture the subtle shifts in tone that signal his inner rebellion.” —Northern California Book Award Winner Citation “[Surrender’s] climax packs abundant weight…this novel has plenty of power.” —Kirkus Reviews "[A] contemplative dystopian story...With an allegorical tone, Spanish writer Loriga presents a spare novel that yields harsh realizations and a deeply felt perception of humanity." —Booklist “Loriga can be considered the originator of writing that moves away from Spanish realism, to mental monologue in a desolate landscape, as if taken from a Hopper painting, with protagonists whose only social nucleus, generally broken, is that of refined writing, of short paragraphs, that does not describe but rather goes, silently, like the tires of a car on a highway.” —La Vanguardia  —

From the Publisher

2019-11-25
Spanish novelist and film director Loriga (Tokyo Doesn't Love Us Anymore, 2004, etc.) traces the fortunes of a married couple progressing through an increasingly dystopian landscape.

Some dystopian fiction abounds with specifics, the better to comment on the present moment. Loriga's novel—his third to appear in the U.S.—takes a more ambiguous and archetypal route. The narrator and his wife have been married a long time—long enough, at least, to have two sons old enough to be fighting in a war where they may or may not have been killed. When the novel begins, a silent child has been living with the couple for six months. "He was wounded when he arrived, which was part of why we started caring for him," the narrator writes. The boy's silence hangs over the book: Like the fate of the couple's children, it's unclear if it denotes something sinister or is a pause before a return to normalcy. Loriga balances granular details, such as the class differences between the husband and wife, with more ambiguous elements. The novel takes a shift into a more overtly science-fictional mode when the couple and their young charge are forced to move to a city—one where the buildings are transparent and privacy is a thing of the past. There are hints here of the government's potential for repressive violence and something unsettling happening with the regulation of hygiene, but, largely, life goes on. The narrator finds a job and settles into a routine, and it's only after time passes that he begins to realize that things are very wrong in both this society and his marriage. At times the book's subtlety feels too restrained, but its climax packs abundant weight.

Blending a realistic portrait of a marriage with a symbolic setting brings mixed results, but this novel still has plenty of power.

Kirkus Reviews

Narrator Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith lends an athletic voice to Loriga’s sci-fi novella. Listeners enter a postapocalyptic world through the perspective of a rugged countryman who, along with his wife and their kidnapped child, Julio, are rounded up by the government and shipped to the illusive Transparent City. Throughout, Smith’s steady, unaffected voice evokes the unnamed protagonist’s suspicions about his new home, his hazy unraveling, and, finally, his weary resignation. If you’re a listener who wonders how a hot-tempered, rural man would navigate “the horrors” of a new world order in which sharing and common decision-making reign, then consider this quick-paced novella worth four hours of your time. G.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2020 - AudioFile

Narrator Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith lends an athletic voice to Loriga’s sci-fi novella. Listeners enter a postapocalyptic world through the perspective of a rugged countryman who, along with his wife and their kidnapped child, Julio, are rounded up by the government and shipped to the illusive Transparent City. Throughout, Smith’s steady, unaffected voice evokes the unnamed protagonist’s suspicions about his new home, his hazy unraveling, and, finally, his weary resignation. If you’re a listener who wonders how a hot-tempered, rural man would navigate “the horrors” of a new world order in which sharing and common decision-making reign, then consider this quick-paced novella worth four hours of your time. G.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2020 - AudioFile