You Dreamed of Empires

Description

You Dreamed of Empires
by Álvaro Enrigue

ISBN: 9780593544808
Softcover, new
Publication Date: 12/31/2024

Brief Description:
A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF 2024 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY TOP TEN
BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR “Enrigue’s genius lies in his ability to bring
readers close to its tangled knot of priests, mercenaries, warriors and
princesses while adding a pinch of biting humor.” –Silvia Moreno-Garcia,
Los Angeles Times “Riotously entertaining… A triumph of solemnity-busting
erudition and mischievous invention that will delight and titillate.”
–Financial Times From the visionary author of Sudden Death, a
hallucinatory, revelatory colonial revenge story. One morning in 1519,
conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today’s Mexico
City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of
two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures. Cortés is
accompanied by his captains, his troops, his prized horses, and his two
translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn friar, and Malinalli, an enslaved,
strategic Nahua princess. After nearly bungling their entrance to the city,
the Spaniards are greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely Aztec
princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of Moctezuma. As they await their
meeting with the emperor – who is at a political and spiritual crossroads,
and relies on hallucinogens to get by – Cortés and his entourage are
ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains,
Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place, begins to
question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders
at the chances of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire. And
what if… they don’t? You Dreamed of Empires brings Tenochtitlan to life
at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Álvaro
Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of
revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so
electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.