IN BRIEF (Page 19)

Everything for empire

Violence, conspiracy, sex, scandals and lies, all for one ultimate goal: maintaining the empire. Javier Moro's meticulous representation of Pedro I de Castilla is now in Chinese. The historical novel El Imperio Eres Tu depicts the king's change from a Don Juan to Don Quixote, with colorful details gleaned from documents and a dollop of imagination. It delineates the king's fare, as well as the shifts in the Portuguese empire. The book won the 2012 People's Literature Publishing House award for Outstanding International Literature and the 2011 Spanish Premio Planeta award.

Chi Zijian in English