The Guardian of Surfaces
Will be published approx. on 31. July 2026
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-917254-08-3 (ISBN)
Description
National Book Award finalist. At all times, we must stay on the surface of language. The surface! Beware of wading into meaning. Do you know what happens to people who sink into meaning?An eternal mania strangles them and they're left unfit to live. You are a guardian of surfaces. The future of humanity depends on you.
T H E F I R S T C E N S O R
The new book censor has not slept soundly in weeks. By day, he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish-allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night, pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter, and the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.
The Guardian of Surfaces is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
T H E F I R S T C E N S O R
The new book censor has not slept soundly in weeks. By day, he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish-allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night, pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter, and the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.
The Guardian of Surfaces is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.
Reviews / Votes
"The Guardian of Surfaces is a necessary masterpiece, proving that true fiction is not an escape into a dreamlike Wonderland but a cautionary excursion into the depths of the human condition. More than ever, we need Al-Essa's rallying cry against censorship, be it political, religious, or academic, because, as her novel so brilliantly illustrates, censorship is always an admission of intellectual cowardice."-Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading"Meaning, metaphor, and the material are all at stake in this sly fable of a near-future won by censors who ban not just books but imagination, dreams, and desire. I'd follow these characters anywhere." -Emily Drabinski, president of The American Library Association
"An urgent, sweeping call to arms for the protection of books and book lovers everywhere"-Kirkus Reviews
"Time will tell whether The Guardian of Surfaces possesses the same kind of world-changing verve of, say, Orwell's 1984 . . . In the meantime, call all your friends, and especially your enemies . . . and let them know that you've heard that Al-Essa's novel might, especially with its liberal use of unregulated rabbits, be even more dangerous than some already banned books."-Bruce J. Krajewski, Ancillary Review of Books
"A riveting tale that is part homage to books and reading and part social commentary on the horrors of authoritarianism. Full of literary references, it's a treasure trove of Easter eggs for those keen to spot every mention and every metaphor. But it is also a captivating story as we follow the book censor through his journey uncovering the delights and dangers (at least in his world) of literature."-Nicki J. Markus, author of Time Keepers
"Al-Essa's claustrophobic satire summons the spirits of Orwell, Carroll, and Kafka, serving as a sharp reminder to cherish free speech . . . [a] fast-paced meditation on the power of language to stir us out of numbness."-Farah Abdessamad, The New Arab
"Expertly infusing both comedic heart and dystopian warning, Al-Essa reminds us how lucky we are to embody the stories we love."-Jade Song, author of Chlorine
"Set in a future that feels all too possible, The Guardian of Surfaces is a clever and fantastical satire of book banning. Littered with literary references, it's a love letter to books and the enduring power of imagination."-Sophie Chen, Belmont Books
"These pages catch readers in a whirlwind of literary delights, while revealing the danger of censorship's dark claws."-Tonja Drecker, Bookworm for Kids
"An assertion of literature's importance and the persistence of imagination, this novel echoes canonized tales of totalitarian dystopia. In this story driven by intertextuality, we follow a man as he discovers humanity in fiction and finds the fear of difference at the root of censorship." -Nath Mayes, Carmichael's Bookstore
"Just like the New Censor, I found myself bewitched by this book." -Katherine Nazzaro, Porter Square Books
More details
Persons
Bothayna Al-Essa is the award-winning, bestselling author of more than ten novels and several children's books. In 2023 she was the British Centre for Literary Translation Writer in Residence. In Kuwait, she is the founder of Takween, a bookshop and publishing house of critically acclaimed works. The Guardian of Surfaces is her third novel to appear in English, after Lost in Mecca and All That I Want to Forget.
Sawad Hussain is a PEN Award-winning translator from Arabic. In 2023, she was shortlisted for The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize; she has been longlisted for The Moore Prize in Human Rights Writing. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and judged the 2023 National Translation Award. In 2014 she co-edited the award-winning Oxford Arabic Dictionary. Her recent translations include Black Foam by Haji Jaber and What Have You Left Behind by Bushra al-Maqtari. She lives in Cambridge.
Ranya Abdelrahman's translation of Out of Time by iconic Palestinian author Samira Azzam was shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award. Her translations from Arabic appear in ArabLit Quarterly and The Common. She lives in Dubai.
Sawad Hussain is a PEN Award-winning translator from Arabic. In 2023, she was shortlisted for The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation and won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize; she has been longlisted for The Moore Prize in Human Rights Writing. She is a judge for the Palestine Book Awards and judged the 2023 National Translation Award. In 2014 she co-edited the award-winning Oxford Arabic Dictionary. Her recent translations include Black Foam by Haji Jaber and What Have You Left Behind by Bushra al-Maqtari. She lives in Cambridge.
Ranya Abdelrahman's translation of Out of Time by iconic Palestinian author Samira Azzam was shortlisted for the Palestine Book Award. Her translations from Arabic appear in ArabLit Quarterly and The Common. She lives in Dubai.