The Billionaires Disappear (Los billonarios desaparecen)

While the richest and most powerful group on the planet decides the future of the world, a remorseful Nobel Prize winner prepares a silent coup: to cut off the world’s top 1% from their money and force a system reboot. The new novel by Sabina Berman, an international bestselling author and one of the most influential voices in contemporary literature.

In Davos, during the most heavily secured summit on the planet, something is about to happen: the 1% that governs the world is about to witness its own disappearance. What no one suspects is that the architect of modern capitalism—Arthur Wermer—has come to destroy the very system he created.

In this allegory about power, inequality, and the planet’s future, Wermer—a Nobel Prize winner and author of the theorem that justified neoliberalism—decides to correct his mistake: the intellectual formula that allowed a handful of tycoons to monopolize the world. After a heart attack and a heart transplant, he has found in bees an alternative model of cooperation and abundance. He arrives in Davos with a secret purpose: to erase the 1%.

As the global elite gathers, an invisible army of workers—cooks, waitresses, musicians—activates Operation Suck, a spy network coordinated by Serena, a Mexican waitress who is in fact a labor lawyer, and Albert, the hotel’s pianist. They use tiny metallic suction devices shaped like bees, gadgets that vibrate softly as they extract data from the cell phones of presidents, kings, and magnates.

Meanwhile, Wermer slips past the tight control of Christine Jambes, the President of the World Bank, mingles with the protesters surrounding the summit, and confesses the truth: his theorem was a fallacy that fueled global inequality. He promises that the next day the “Thousand Owners of the World” will disappear.

And he delivers. During his conference before the elite, he explains that money is a universal fiction, a shared religion—and as such, it can be undone. At that moment, Albert activates a virus that multiplies all the world’s accounts by zero. It is the greatest financial cataclysm in history: blank markets, gutted ATMs, global panic. Without money, the 1% vanishes as an elite—their economic and symbolic power dissolves within hours.

The world enters a radical pause: work without wages? Only those who love their labor continue. The new privileged are those who have food. Humanity begins to reorganize from the countryside, amid tensions, learning, and a new relationship with nature.

The conspirators disperse. Wermer returns to his bees. Christine queues to buy potatoes. Spring arrives early, the air grows cleaner, and a new era—silent and fertile—begins to take shape.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Sabina Berman is a Mexican writer, playwright, and screenwriter, considered one of the most important voices in contemporary literature and theater. She has received Mexico’s National Playwriting Award four times, among other international honors. Her novels include The Woman Who Dived into the Heart of the World, translated into more than ten languages and published in over thirty countries, making it one of the most internationally circulated Mexican works. As a screenwriter, she has built a successful career with films such as Between Pancho Villa and a Naked Woman and Backyard / El traspatio, both selected to represent Mexico in the race for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Billionaires Disappear is a novel charged with tension and suspense, blending political thriller with dystopian elements and human drama. It features moments of high tension, suspense, and action, alongside a chorus of highly cinematic characters with clear, expressive arcs. Overall, it is a deeply cinematic novel that will delight fans of Black Mirror, Mr. Robot, and Don’t Look Up.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Feature Film, TV Film

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish