A dazzling tapestry of myth, fantasy and folk tale from Argentina's great writer of speculative fiction, in a translation by Ursula K. Le Guin.

In city squares and glittering palaces, a series of storytellers recount the many deaths and rebirths of the greatest Empire that never was: a history in which beggars rise to the Golden Throne, mad emperors raze cities and murderous empresses plot against their own children.

Angélica Gorodischer’s dreamlike novel, masterfully translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, conjures a labyrinthine fictional universe of magical lore, broken dynasties and an Empire fated to rise, fall and rise again.