You Dreamed of Empires

By Álvaro Enrigue, Natasha Wimmer (translator),

Book cover of You Dreamed of Empires

Book description

"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

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Why read it?

1 author picked You Dreamed of Empires as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I was enthralled by this book because it seems to pull off the impossible: it feels historically accurate and utterly alien, yet it’s perfectly clear what is happening most of the time – there’s at least one hallucinatory passage that deliriously rattled my brain. It is rich in description yet never plods. It chronicles the sometimes-bumbling trek of Hernan Cortes and his Spanish Conquistadores to the center of the Aztec Empire in 1521. What follows are a clash of cultures, a sharing of knowledge and a struggle for power amid hilarious misunderstandings and multiple tragedies. Authentic yet irreverent, poetic yet…