{"product_id":"sudden-death-9780735213449","title":"Sudden Death","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Splendid\" --\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mind-bending.\" --\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Brilliantly original. The best new novel I've read this year.\" --\u003cb\u003eSalman Rushdie\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA daring, kaleidoscopic novel about the clash of empires and ideas, told through a tennis match in the sixteenth century between the radical Italian artist Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo, played with a ball made from the hair of the beheaded Anne Boleyn.  \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe poet and the artist battle it out in Rome before a crowd that includes Galileo, a Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw the world into flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII execute Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into those most-sought-after tennis balls. Across the ocean in Mexico, the last Aztec emperors play their own games, as the conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Mayan translator and lover, La Malinche, scheme and conquer, fight and f**k, not knowing that their domestic comedy will change the course of history. In a remote Mexican colony a bishop reads Thomas More's \u003ci\u003eUtopia\u003c\/i\u003e and thinks that it's a manual instead of a parody. And in today's New York City, a man searches for answers to impossible questions, for a book that is both an archive and an oracle. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eÁlvaro Enrigue's mind-bending story features assassinations and executions, hallucinogenic mushrooms, bawdy criminals, carnal liaisons and papal schemes, artistic and religious revolutions, love and war. A blazingly original voice and a postmodern visionary, Enrigue tells the grand adventure of the dawn of the modern era, breaking down traditions and upending expectations, in this bold, powerful gut-punch of a novel. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eGame, set, match.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eSudden Death\u003c\/i\u003e is the best kind of puzzle, its elements so esoteric and wildly funny that readers will race through the book, wondering how Álvaro Enrigue will be able to pull a novel out of such an astonishing ball of string. But Enrigue absolutely does; and with brilliance and clarity and emotional warmth all the more powerful for its surreptitiousness.\" \u003cbr\u003e--\u003cb\u003eLauren Groff\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eFates and Furies\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Engrossing... rich with Latin and European history.\" \u003ci\u003e--The New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[A] bawdy, often profane, sprawling, ambitious book that is as engaging as it is challenging.\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Vogue\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eÁlvaro Enrigue\u003c\/b\u003e was a Cullman Center Fellow and a Fellow at the Princeton University Program in Latin American Studies. He has taught at New York University, Princeton University, the University of Maryland, and Columbia University. His work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Believer\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe White Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003en+1\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEl\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003ePaís\u003c\/i\u003e, among others. This novel--his first translated into English--was awarded the prestigious Herralde Prize in Spain, the Elena Poniatowska International Novel Award in Mexico, and the Barcelona Prize for Fiction, and has been translated into many languages. Enrigue was born in Mexico and lives in New York City. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eNatasha Wimmer\u003c\/b\u003e's translations include \u003ci\u003eThe Savage Detectives \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003e2666 \u003c\/i\u003eby Roberto Bolaño. She lives in New York City.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50621792420114,"sku":"9780735213449","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_32e556a7-b226-4a3c-98e3-ac506f6613f7.jpg?v=1732585406","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/sudden-death-9780735213449","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}