Surrender, Paperback

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 Jos 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.

RAY LORIGA is an author, screenwriter, and film director. Surrender, which won the 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. His work has been translated into fourteen languages.