Bono to Release Memoir ‘Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story’

The long-rumored memoir by Bono, U2‘s frontman, is coming out Nov. 1. Alfred A. Knopf announced Tuesday (May 10) that the book, first signed up in 2015 but not officially disclosed at the time, will be called Surrender. Reports that he had a deal date back to at least 2019.

“When I started to write this book, I was hoping to draw in detail what I’d previously only sketched in songs,” the 62-year-old Irish singer and activist, born Paul David Hewson, said in a statement. “The people, places and possibilities in my daily life. Surrender is a word freighted with meaning for me. It was not something I had ever thought of growing up in Ireland in the seventies. This word was one I only circled until my thoughts were gathered for the book. This is one of the most difficult commands I have ever received.

“In my marriage, my faith, and my life as an activist. Surrender is the story about one pilgrim’s failure to make progress. . . You’ll have a lot of fun along the journey .”

The book’s subtitle is “40 Songs, One Story,” a reference to the structure of Surrender: 40 chapters, each named for a U2 song. There are many hits by the band, including “With or Without You”, “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, and “Where the Streets have No Name “.

Bono and U2 guitarist The Edge performed a surprise set in a subway station in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv that has been serving as a bomb shelter to show support for Ukrainians fending off Russia’s unprovoked war. The singer tweeted that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, invited them to perform in Kyiv “as a sign of solidarity with Ukrainian people and so that is what we’ve come here to do .”

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