This is the story of Olga, a retired mathematician, and Mateo, a college student passionate about robotics, and their plot to influence Google.
"This is a beautifully written, endlessly provocative meditation on humanity's relationship to technology, monopoly, memory and fate."-- Dave Eggers, author of The Circle and The Every
After a chance encounter at the public library, two new friends begin to meet up regularly. Together they decide to submit an application for Google sponsorship to an elite technology-training program. Hoping to stand out, they frame their submission as a direct appeal to the "conscience" of the seemingly all-powerful corporation.
Olga, a retired entrepreneur, and Mateo, a college student, find unexpected connection and solace in their conversations. Ideas and arguments open into personal stories as they debate the possibility of free will, the existence of merit, and the role of artificial intelligence. They ask the most basic and important of questions: What does it mean to be human in a reality shaped by data and surveillance? Is there still space for empathy and care? What could we be, what could we build, if we used our resources in different ways?
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Belén Gopegui burst onto the Spanish literary scene in 1993, bowling over critics with her debut, La escala de los mapas [The Scale of Maps, City Lights, 2011], which was hailed as a masterpiece. She has since published six more novels, stories, young people’s fiction, and screenplays, and several of her books have been adapted for cinema. This is her second translation into English. Gopegui was born, and lives in, Madrid, Spain.
Mark Schafer is an award-winning literary translator and visual artist, and a senior lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he teaches Spanish. He has translated works by authors from around the Spanish-speaking world, including David Huerta, Virgilio Piñera, Alberto Ruy Sánchez, and Belén Gopegui's La escala de los mapas [The Scale of Maps, City Lights, 2011]. Schafer is a founding member of the Boston Area Literary Translators Group. He lives in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
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Dick Cluster’s translations for City Lights Books include fiction by Gabriela Alemán, Mylene Fernández Pintado, Pedro de Jesús, and Antonio José Ponte. His most recent translation is Paula Abramo’s poetry collection FIAT LUX (Mexico, FlowerSong Press), while the opening of the baseball season brings to mind his collection of Latin American baseball fiction in translation, Kill the Ámpaya! Cluster’s original works include a mystery novel series and a social history of the city of Havana.