From the authors of Sanctuary comes a haunting story about the courage and sacrifice it takes to fight for freedom.
In 2033, life in the New American Republic is bleak. A xenophobic and racist government has imprisoned thousands of undocumented people in a giant labor camp in the Arizona desert. Black people, Brown people, Asian people and Indigenous people are dumped on the cage floors, their bodies almost broken and their hearts filled with fear. The prisoners are forced to scavenge for a precious and newly discovered chemical in the surrounding mines. This chemical is being used by the president to control the weather. The climate crisis and global drought has pushed the country to the forefront of the water wars that are ravaging the world. The work is grueling, the torture inhumane. This world seems hopeless.
And yet, in the darkest of places is where the fierce light of revolution ignites.
Solis is told by four different narrators—Rania, who is working in the brutal mines; Jess, a former Deportation Force officer who’s being punished for betraying the republic’s cruel plan; Liliana, who must decide whether she can lead an uprising; and Vali, who is now a freedom fighter determined to breach the camp and rescue everyone trapped inside.
Each of these women is being stripped of their humanity in a unique way. Each of them is struggling to stay alive. And each of them needs to find the guts, grit or faith it takes to join this revolution, because they cannot live or die without fighting back.
Solis is about fierce love and determination. It’s about the human capacity not only to survive, but to band together and create a force greater than oppression. It’s about resilience, revolution, and ultimately, hope.
The following is an excerpt from Solis that follows Rania’s perspective.
Kenna leans in and kisses me just next to my ear. I feel tears spring to my eyes because it’s all so much at once. There are so many warm, expectant faces in front of us—some burned and scarred; some edging toward death already. All of us, part of some cruel human experiment. And yet, this moment is the nearest thing to joy I’ve felt in so long. It feels pure and untouchable, like a single blade of grass rising up in the desert.
“Maybe now we join in prayer?” Liliana offers. She holds out her hand and Isa takes it. Then Mishi takes Isa’s and waves for her mom to join her. One by one, we form our familiar circle. Liliana leads us all in a prayer that she loves. Most of us are familiar with the words by now. Then a woman I don’t know as well offers a song in Creole that rumbles up from her gut and makes us all bat away tears. And then Liliana starts naming all the people we’ve lost from our cage—either from the harvests or from the relentless digging, the starvation and stinging dust that is slowly killing us all.
We each add names that are important to us. Sometimes our voices fall on top of each other; sometimes there is a gulley of grief that is louder than any words. When I say my parents’ names, Kenna rubs my back. Then she lists her mother, father, and two missing brothers, and I lean my cheek into her shoulder, trying to absorb some of her ache. But she’s consumed with another spell of coughing and retreats from the circle to catch her breath again.
“What about a prayer for the hurting?” asks Isa.
Liliana puts her hand to her heart.
“Yes,” says Liliana. “This is lovely. Do you have one you want to say?”
Isa twists a few strands of her hair around her finger and looks at the ground, suddenly awkward and shy again. She used to do this all the time before we started escuela.
“Well, I hope Señorita Kenna stops coughing, please.”
“It’s okay! I’m okay!” Kenna wheezes.
“Yes, yes,” Liliana says. “Let us send healing breath to our dear Kenna.” She pauses to breathe deeply and many of us copy her before she continues. “Does anyone else want to add a prayer? Or the name of someone in need of healing?”
People start speaking, tentatively at first. I cannot understand all the words because they are quiet and heavy with worry. Somehow it feels more hopeless to talk about the people who are ailing, who might have a chance at living. The dead at least know they’re safe.
“What about her?” shouts Mishi. All eyes turn to the tiny girl’s finger pointing at a huddled figure in the corner. It’s the white girl from the night before. At least, I think it is. She looks almost unrecognizable, covered in a mess of dried blood and bruises. One side of her face is so puffy her lips can’t close.
There are a few audible gasps from the other women. Whatever we thought or assumed about her, it’s clear that she’s hurting now too.
“Yes, let us say a prayer for her too,” Liliana says. “For all those who might be hurting.”
And so we do. At least those of us left standing do.
