You Dreamed of Empires

Parts of the novel play like an Aztec West Wing, taking us deep into the political manoeuvrings of the royal court but blending its particularities with 21st-century psychology. It’s a rich approach that achieves a hallucinatory vividness * Guardian *
Riotously entertaining… Natasha Wimmer brilliantly brings the author’s playfulness and idiomatic humour to life for an English-language readership. The result is a triumph of solemnity-busting erudition and mischievous invention that will delight and titillate * Financial Times *
A mischievous fantasy… Enrigue plunges exuberantly into the revisionist speculation that rehabilitates Indiginous awareness and agency * Times Literary Supplement *
A lively, arresting read – if 2024 brings more novels as original as this one, it will be a good year * The Times *
An eclectic work of exceptional originality * Skinny *
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 *
Enrigue’s work is marked by an all-consuming attention to historical detail.... He is a preternaturally entertaining and erudite writer who builds alternate worlds from the minutiae. He also seems like he’s having a pretty good time -- Benjamin Russell * New York Times *
Incantatory... Enrigue conjures both court intrigue and city life with grace * The New Yorker *
[S]ublime absurdities... abound in this delirious historical fantasia, which can be said to be many things: funny, ghastly, eye-opening, marvelous and frequently confounding * Wall Street Journal *
[S]hort, strange, spiky and sublime... Enrigue, who is clearly a major talent, has delivered a humane comedy of manners that is largely about paranoia (is today the day my head will be lopped off?) and the quotidian bummers of life, even if you are powerful beyond belief -- Dwight Garner * New York Times *
An alternate history of Mexican conquest, with a Tarantino-ready twist.... Deliciously gonzo.... Rendered in earthy, demotic, wryly unhistorical English by translator Natasha Wimmer... Enrigue’s antic style is high-minded, richly detailed, vulgar and sophisticated all at once — reminiscent of the films of Peter Greenaway or Derek Jarman * Washington Post *
A riotous reimagining of the world-changing encounter, in 1520, between Hernán Cortés, the cocksure Spanish conquistador, and Moctezuma, melancholy emperor of the Mexica * Financial Times, *Summer Reads of 2024* *