coming up

Wednesday, September 9, 10-11:30am (MST, same as Pacific Time)

Álvaro Enrigue, Now I Surrender

Álvaro Enrigue will discuss his bold, visionary novel that reimagines the history of the Apache Wars and the surrender of Geronimo. Both historical and fictional, this work radically recasts the story of how the West was “won.” 

In Now I Surrender, Álvaro Enrigue brings us into the contested borderlands of the Southwest and northern Mexico, radically recasting the history of the Apache Wars and the surrender of Geronimo. Weaving together historical narrative, archival research, and inventive fiction, the novel challenges long-held myths of how the West was "won". Rather than delivering a conventional Western, Enrigue presents a shifting, panoramic landscape populated by Native Americans, Mexican settlers, historical icons, and reimagined figures—each navigating a world defined by displacement, survival, and transformation.

Part epic and part alternative Western, Now I Surrender is a searing elegy for a lost way of life and an homage to the enduring human spirit. By blurring the line between history and myth, Enrigue uncovers the buried memories of Apachería, examining how the past continually shadows the present. The novel stands as a brilliant, thought-provoking examination of power, memory, and the intricate, shared heritage of the U.S.–Mexico borderlands.

About Álvaro Enrigue: Álvaro Enrigue is a prominent Mexican novelist, essayist, and academic based in New York, where he serves as a professor at Hofstra University. A former fellow at the Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars and recipient of the prestigious Joaquín Mortiz and Herralde prizes, Enrigue is widely celebrated for his masterly, genre-defying approach to history. His work has appeared in major publications around the globe, and he is recognized as one of the most original and compelling voices in contemporary Spanish-language literature.

Reviews

"This gifted Mexican writer… delivers novels that are steeped in history and have a hallucinatory sense of pageantry… He's one of the best we have." — The New York Times

"Now I Surrender has been described as a revisionist or 'alternative Western,' which it is, but given its scope, I think it might be more apt to call it an 'expandable Western.' There's room for everyone in this epic of conquest and eradication…" — NPR Fresh Air

"Offer[s] the satisfactions of Westerns, historical epics, and metafiction even as [Enrigue] overturns all three traditions." — The Atlantic

Pick up a copy of Now I Surrender at your local independent bookstore or library and dive into its pages before our gathering. As usual, in a week or so we’ll send out a list of resources providing additional materials to aid your preparation for our session. This will include podcasts, interviews, articles, poems … whatever seems to best summarize and shed light on this fascinating theme. And remember… send in your questions to add to mine, in interviewing Álvaro!

BLFC Archive

View the rest of the BLFC archive on Vimeo:

2025

• Joseph Mathew-Varghese, “The Long Walk of Carlos Guerrero” (December 10, 2025)

• Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “Heaven Has a Wall: Religion, Borders, and the Global United States (November 12, 2025)

• Reyna Grande, “The Distance Between Us” (September 10, 2025)

• Tim Z. Hernandez, author of “All They Will Call You” (August 13, 2025)

• David Damian Figueroa & Gale Hall, authors of “El Oz” and “Lili’s Quilt” (July 9, 2025)

• Ken Lamberton, author of “Dry River: Stories of Life, Death, and Redemption on the Santa Cruz” (June 12, 2025)

• Barbara Sostaita, author of “Sanctuary Everywhere” (April 9, 2025)

• Mike Wilson and José Antonio Lucero, authors of “What Side Are You On? A Tohono O'odham Life Across Borders” (February 12, 2025)

• Gary Paul Nabhan, author of “Against the American Grain” (January 8, 2025)

2024

• Melani Martinez, author of “The Molino: A Memoir” (December 11, 2024)

• Sarah Towle, author of “Crossing the Line: Finding America in the Borderlands” (October 9, 2024)

• Jared Orsi, author of "Recovering the Lost History and Culture of Quitobaquito" (September 11, 2024)

• Marie Arana, author of “Latinoland: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority” (August 14, 2024)

• Dora Rodriguez, author of “On Migration and Amnesty” (July 10, 2024)

• “Coronado: the New Evidence”, produced by Frances Causey and featuring Dr. Deni Seymour (June 12, 2024)

• Renata Golden, author of “Mountain Time: A Field Guide to Astonishment” (May 8, 2024)

• Héctor Tobar, author of “Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of ‘Latino’” (April 10, 2024)

• John B Washington, author of “The Case for Open Borders” (February 14, 2024)

• Krista Schlyer, author of “Continental Divide: Wildlife, People, and the Border Wall” (January 10, 2024)

2023

• Henry Barajas, “La Voz de M.A.Y.O.: Tato Rambo” (December 13, 2023)

• Alejandra Oliva, “Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration” (November 8, 2023)

• Seth Schermerhorn, Bernard Siquieros, Regina Siquieros, “Pilgrimage to Magdalena” (October 11, 2023)

• Tom Zoellner, “Rim to River: Looking Into the Heart of Arizona” (August 9, 2023)

• Tom Sheridan, “Landscapes of Fraud: Mission Tumacacori, the Baca Float, and the Betrayal of the O’odham” (July 12, 2023)

• Andrew Selee, “Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together” (June 14, 2023)

• Lydia Otero, “In the Shadow of the Freeway: Growing Up Brown and Queer” (May 10, 2023)

• Luis Alberto Urrea, “The Hummingbird’s Daughter,” “Into the Beautiful North,” and “The Devil’s Highway” (April 12, 2023)

• Gary Paul Nabhan, “The Nature of Desert Nature” (February 8, 2023)

• Greg Grandin, “End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America” (January 11, 2023)

2022

• Bill Steen, “Feels Like Home: A Song for the Sonora Borderlands” by Linda Ronstadt with Lawrence Downs (December 14, 2022)

• Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca, “Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings” (November 9, 2022)

• Jenn Budd, “Against the Wall: My Journey from Border Patrol Agent to Immigrant Rights Activist” (October 12, 2022)

• Dr. Toni Munoz-Hunt discusses the topic of Bordercanos (August 10, 2022)

• Athena Swentzell Steen discusses the topic of Southwest Desert-Adapted Architecture (July 13, 2022)

• Daniel Cooper Alarcon discusses the topic of the history and mythology of Aztlan (June 8, 2022)

• Javier Zamora, “Unaccompanied” and “Solito” (May 11, 2022)

• Scott Buchanan discusses the topic of children’s and youth literature in the borderlands (April 13, 2022)

• Todd Miller, “Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders” (February 9, 2022)

• Wynne Brown, “The Forgotten Botanist: Sara Plummer Lemmon’s Life of Science and Art” (January 12, 2022)

2021

• Jeff Babson, Sky Island Tours (November 11, 2022)

• Roxanne Swentzell and Patricia Perea, “The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Foods of our Ancestors” (October 13, 2021)

• Gary Paul Nabhan, “Food from the Radical Center: Healing Our Land and Communities” (September 8, 2021)

• Alberto Rios, “The Good Map of All Things” (July 14, 2021)

• David Owens, “Where the Water Goes” and Craig Childs, “The Secret Knowledge of Water” (June 9, 2021)

• Janya Burn, “Cloak and Jaguar: Following a Cat from Desert to Courtroom” (April 14, 2021)

• Robert C. West, “Sonora: Its Geographical Personality,” Thomas E. Sheridan, “Where the Dove Calls,” Padre Kino documentary, “Favores Celestiales” (March 10, 2021)

• Rita and Francisco Cantu, “The Line Becomes a River” (January 13, 2021)

2020

• Jeffrey Schulze, “Are We Not Foreigners Here? Nationalism in the US-Mexico Borderlands” and film, “Sonora” (November 11, 2020)

• Lawrence Taylor, “Tales from the Desert Borderland” and film, “El Mar La Mar” (October 14, 2020)

• Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie S. Collazo, “The Book of Rosy: A Mother’s Story of Separation at the Border” and film, “Human Flow” (September 9, 2020)

• César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, “Migration to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants” (August 12, 2020)

• Film, “Sin Nombre” (July 8, 2020)