Surrender on Demand - by Nadia de Vries (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"Get ready to fall in love with De Vries's playful pen and unrelenting view of mankind. Surrender on Demand is gorgeous and strange and somehow familiarly human, Dickens in a sharp modern jacket." --Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Safekeep

A biting tale about class and destiny from the Netherlands--told through an endearing antihero named Shellfish.

We all went to the same school, which was referred to as a "special" school. Not because we were special ourselves but because the system had deemed us useless . . . In other words, we were being prepared for a life of service. In that respect, we suffered a similar fate. And I detest fate.

Shellfish grows up in a coastal village polluted by the local steel plant. The factory or the distribution center: these are the choices ahead. Both are work in places without windows, dictated by the clock. But Shellfish dreams of a different future: to no longer serve, but be a master.

Will Shellfish succeed in breaking free? If we cannot outgrow the circumstances we were born in, does that mean we've failed at life? Surrender on Demand is about the difference between people who get to choose their future and those who have to suffer their fate. About villagers and day-trippers. About casual violence. And about seagulls. A carnivalesque, satirical, intense, big, small novel about class and destiny.

Review Quotes

"Get ready to fall in love with De Vries's playful pen and unrelenting view of mankind. Surrender on Demand is gorgeous and strange and somehow familiarly human, Dickens in a sharp modern jacket." --Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of THE SAFEKEEP

"De Vries writes flawlessly, humorously, and with restraint and precision. This applies to every sentence, every chapter, and everything that happens in this compact, yet grand novel." --Trouw (the Netherlands)

"A very dark novel that is at the same time remarkably light and funny, like a contemporary version of a Dickensian story." --De Volkskrant (the Netherlands)

"You don't need more than 160 pages to create an entire universe." --HUMO (Belgium)

About the Author

Nadia de Vries is a bilingual author based in Amsterdam. Originally published as Overgave op commando in 2025 in the Netherlands, Surrender on Demand was shortlisted for the Libris Literature Prize, the most prestigious award for Dutch literature. De Vries also writes poetry in English. Her collected works, All My Dead Jesters, were published by Tenement Press in 2026. Surrender on Demand is her U.S. prose debut.

Sarah Timmer Harvey is a writer and translator based in Woodstock, New York. Her translations include Jente Posthuma's International Booker Prize-shortlisted What I'd Rather Not Think About. She holds an MFA from Columbia University.