'A lively, arresting read' The Times

In 1519, Conquistador Hernán Cortés and his troops ride into the floating city of Tenoxtitlan - today's Mexico City - in this hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story.

Invited to a ceremonial meal with the steely princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of the emperor Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance into the city and its labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés's captains, Jazmín Caldera, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

Moctezuma himself is at a political, spiritual and physical crossroads, relying on hallucinogens in a quest for any kind of answer from the gods. When Cortés and Moctezuma meet, two worlds, empires, languages, and possible futures collide.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenoxtitlan at its height - and reimagines its destiny.
It sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.

Translated by Natasha Wimmer

Álvaro Enrigue (Author)
Álvaro Enrigue is a prize-winning Mexican writer. His novel You Dreamed of Empires was a New York Times Top 10 Best Book of 2024 and a Guardian Book of the Year, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, the London Review of Books, El País, and n+1, among other publications. A former Fellow at the Cullman Center and at Princeton University, he teaches Latin American Literature at Hofstra University and lives with his family in New York City.

Natasha Wimmer (Translator)
Natasha Wimmer's translations include Álvaro Enrigue's You Dreamed of Empires and Sudden Death and Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives and 2666. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.