Audiobook Review
Now I Surrender (2026)
by Alvaro Enrique
Translated by Natsha Wimmer
I am a big fan of Mexican author Alvaro Enrique. I was especially excited for the English language translation of his 2016 novel, Now I Surrender, a combination of multiple novellas taking place in Apacheria. At times, Now I Surrender reminded me of Roberto Bolaños, 2666, of the corpus of work by Teju Cole and of course, Cormac McCarthy, the forever laurearte of the North American desert Southwest. The first strand of Now I Surrender is the McCarthy-esque bit- a 19th century Mexican army captain leading a rag-tag bunch of "troops" in search of a kidnapped Mexican woman. This portion contains the kind of hard to stomach violence that one associates with McCarthy's border trilogy, though the characters have a distinctly Mexican point-of-view, vastly different from McCarthy's affectless Americans.
The second strand is a writing/rewriting of the events surrounding the capture of Geronimo and the last band of wild Apache Indians. This section is more like Enrique's other work- a poetic reimagining of very real historical events, with characters who sound like modern people.
The final strand is a Teju Cole Esque part about a character who sounds very much like the Author- a Spanish language writer of some repute, living in New York City and struggling with his split Mexican/Spanish identity. Seeking clarity, he takes his wife and children on a tour of Apacheria, where he muses on the subjects in the other two stands of the book.
At first, I was a little disappointed, but as the book moved forward, I found myself engaged. Even though this book was published a decade ago, it still felt fresh, like it could have been published this year. Highly recommend this book and the rest of Enrique's bibliography, he is one of my favorite active writers in any language.
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