You Dreamed of Empires

August 1, 2023

In 1519, Hern�n Cort�s entered the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, to meet the emperor Moctezuma and plan his conquest of a kingdom. But one of Cort�s's captains, Jazm�n Caldera, is beginning to doubt that conquest is possible. Moctezuma's use of hallucinogens frames the book's shifting, feverish style. From the author of the Herralde/Barcelona--winning Sudden Death. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 4, 2023
Enrigue (Sudden Death) once again reimagines history in this dynamic and stimulating chronicle of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés’s expedition into the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1519. Despite Cortés’s blunder of trying to hug Emperor Moctezuma upon their initial greeting, Moctezuma welcomes the Spanish expedition into his palace, where the party waits for their official meeting with him. The perspective jumps between a host of characters on both sides, including Moctezuma’s sister and wife, the princess Atotoxtli, who tries to counsel the emperor despite his melancholy and reliance on hallucinogenic drugs; and Jazmín Caldera, Cortés’s third in command who gets lost in the mazelike palace on a quest to find the expedition’s horses. As everyone waits for the fateful meeting, Cortés’s translator wonders whether the Spaniards are “visitors or prisoners.” Enrigue sustains a seductive yet ominous tone that evokes a persistent threat of violence, and he caps things off with a dizzying climactic scene that offers an alternative to the historical record and dovetails with the book’s heavy dose of hallucinogens. Flexing his narrative muscle, Enrigue brings the past to vivid, brain-melting life. Agent: Ria Julien, Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

November 1, 2023
A vision of the Aztec empire on the verge of conquest. In 1520, Spanish conquistadors led by Hern�n Cort�s began to wrest control of Tenochtitlan (in what is now Mexico City) from the Aztecs. But in November 1519, when Enrigue's arch historical novel is set, the two cultures were play-acting at diplomacy. The Aztecs are baffled by the Spaniards' horses, the proclamations of their King Charles I, and tales of Christianity. The conquistadores, meanwhile, find the food repulsive, the long waits frustrating, and are troubled by a citadel decorated with thousands of skulls. In the run-up to the inevitable horrors to come, Enrigue focuses on one junior representative from each side: Jazm�n Caldera, an investor in Cort�s' expedition, and Atotoxtli, the sister and (figurehead) wife of Moctezuma, the Aztec emperor whose alliances are crumbling and who is prone to retreat into a druggy, sleepy haze. Moctezuma is mercurial, prone to calling for the execution of assistants at the smallest slights, but the Spaniards aren't much better, slavers biding their time. Enrigue's tone (nicely conveyed via Wimmer's translation) is of ironic disbelief--the fate of two global cultures turns on the narcissistic preening of these two tribes? ("If there's anything Spaniards and Mexicans have always agreed upon, it's that nobody is less qualified to govern than the government itself," Enrigue quips.) Little has changed, Enrigue means to say, at certain moments pushing the story out of strict historical fiction, at one point suggesting that a foreboding sound echoes a T. Rex song, or crafting an ahistorical dream sequence in which history turns the Aztecs' way. In the acknowledgments, Enrigue cites Borges as a key inspiration, and the novel certainly shares an affinity for dark humor, metanarrative, and detail about history, real and imagined. But the irony and wit Enrigue brings to the story is entirely his own. An offbeat, well-turned riff on anti-colonialist themes.

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Starred review from January 1, 2024

Inspired by the work of Jorge Luis Borges, Mexican novelist Enrigue (Sudden Death) writes a fantastical spin on the history of the famous Aztec leader Moctezuma II and his fateful meeting with the Spaniard Hern�n Cort�s in 1519. Moctezuma is 55 years old and moody and does not like to be seen outside of the palace. He depends on the hallucinogenic properties of plants to get through the day. Once the fierce military leader who won his first war at the age of 14, Moctezuma now likens his leadership role to head priest of a cult. Cort�s and his entourage are allowed into the city of Tenochtitlan and ushered past the gates into the labyrinth of the palace, where they wait--and wonder. Details of human sacrifice, the Aztec penchant for dismembering enemies, and making wind chimes of skulls and skeletal remains are well described in realistic terms. The human chimes were made to scare rivals and deter warring factions and were mostly successful, until the Aztecs encountered the invading Cort�s. VERDICT In Enrigue's well-researched novel, a segment of Aztec history comes to life, with the author's own twist.--Lisa Rohrbaugh

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2024
Enrigue (Sudden Death, 2016) presents a fictional account of the final days of the Aztec empire, imagining sly schemes, languid moments, and confused cultural interactions among powerful men and their retinues. The year is 1519. Hern�n Cort�s and his conquistadors have entered the Aztec capital, Mehxicoh-Tenoxtitlan, but it's not clear if they are guests or prisoners. The Mexica worry about the Castillians' intentions and covet their horses but have fallen into infighting and debauchery. Their ruler, Moctezuma, spends his days in a drugged-out haze, eating magic-mushroom paste, napping, and condemning various subordinates to death. Communications flow messily, through multiple translators; diplomatic entreaties are hopelessly bungled. The temple passageways overflow with skulls; violence, we know, is imminent. Enrigue sketches his characters with light, vivid strokes, and fills his sentences with abundant Nahuatl terms. He folds in a few playful metafictional touches to keep readers guessing. (In his acknowledgements, the author cites Borges as an influence, but there are also traces of DeLillo and Cortazar.) Alongside its strong anti-colonialist themes, Enrigue's depiction of male decadence amidst the end-times feels distinctly contemporary.

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