Bookatlas
1987After the Boom
Cover of News from the Empire

News from the Empire

Fernando del Paso · 1935–2018 · Mexico

Originally Noticias del Imperio (Spanish) · translated by Stella T. Clark and Jonathan Tittler

Why it matters

Ten voices (Empress Carlota's madness chief among them) reconstruct Maximilian and Carlota's doomed Mexican monarchy and its firing-squad end. Del Paso's other maximalist masterpiece: exhaustive research rendered as fevered, polyphonic tragedy.

At a glance

historical fictionpolitical novelmodernist
Difficulty 8/10slow pace464 pages

Ten interwoven narrators and encyclopedic historical detail demand sustained concentration.

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