You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue
Álvaro Enrigue's latest novel is a hallucinatory reimagining of fateful violent events in colonial Mexico
On 8 November 1519, a small army of conquistadores led by capitán Hernán Cortés entered the mystical city-island of Tenochtitlan – now Mexico City – bringing with them a treasure far more valuable than gold.* In You Dreamed of Empires, Enrigue presents a reimagined account of this day: a strained afternoon of apparent calm after the Spaniard’s bloody journey to the heart of the Aztec empire leading to the fateful meeting between Cortés and emperor Moctezuma.
Tenochtitlan and its inhabitants come to life in Enrigue’s writing. Much like the violent encounter of two clashing cultures, this is a novel of contrasts: fully fledged characters engage in cartoonish displays of brutality; vibrant descriptions and well-researched portrayals of real places, customs and historical events are sprinkled with anachronisms; history meets comedy and playful writing is used to lighten the tone of a deeply tragic tale.
Although slow to reach any substantial action, You Dreamed of Empires has many of the elements of a good political thriller: twists, turns, hidden motivations and a lot of tension. Not that this makes it an easy book to classify – despite the abundance of tropes, chaos is the moving force in the Mexican author’s psychedelic novel, resulting in an eclectic work of exceptional originality, narrowly rescued from becoming overwhelmingly absurd by an open awareness of its fictionality.
*The treasure was horses.