News from the Empire

By Fernando Del Paso, Alfonso Gonzalez (translator), Stella T. Clark (translator)

Book cover of News from the Empire

Book description

One of the acknowledged masterpieces of Mexican literature, Fernando del Paso's News from the Empire is a powerful and encyclopedic novel of the tragic lives of Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, the short-lived Emperor and Empress of Mexico. Simultaneously intimate and panoramic, the narrative flows from Carlota's fevered memories of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked News from the Empire as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

It is often said that history is stranger than fiction and a disastrous French invasion of Mexico in 1862 to establish a European-style monarchy certainly fits the cliché. The then-French emperor, Napoleon III, rescued the Habsburg archduke Ferdinand Maximilian from a life as a dilettante in the shadow of his older brother, Franz Joseph, emperor of Austria. Maximilian was offered a throne propped up by French bayonets across the Atlantic. The only problem was that most Mexicans supported the legitimate president, Benito Juárez. After a vicious civil war and a desperate last stand, Maximilian was captured tried and executed in…

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