Sudden Death

A funny and mind-bending novel about the clash of empires and ideas in the sixteenth century, told over the course of one dazzling tennis match

As Caravaggio, the libertine of Italy's art world, and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo aim to settle scores over the course of one brutal tennis match, the old European order edges closer to eruption. Across the ocean, in early sixteenth-century Mexico, the Aztec Empire is under the fatal grip of Hernan Cortes and his Mayan lover.

'Glorious' New York Times

'Endlessly inventive', Guardian, Best Books of 2016

'Wildly funny' Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

As Caravaggio, the libertine of Italy’s art world, and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo aim to settle scores over the course of one brutal tennis match, the old European order edges closer to eruption.

Across the ocean, in early sixteenth-century Mexico, the Aztec Empire is under the fatal grip of Hernán Cortés and his Mayan lover. While they scheme and conquer, fight and fuck, their domestic comedy will change the course of history, throwing the world – and Rome’s tennis match – into a mind-bending reverie of assassinations, executions, papal dramas, carnal liaisons and artistic revolution.

Translated by Natasha Wimmer, the prize-winning translator of Roberto Bolaño's The SavageDetectives and 2666.