Muerte súbita (or Sudden Death) is a novel written by Álvaro Enrigue. Released in 2013, it tells of a tennis match during the 17th century and the politics surrounding it.
Characters[]
- Caravaggio
- Quevedo
- Galileo
- Mary Magdalene
- Thomas Cromwell
- Henry VIII
- Hernán Cortés
- La Malinche
rest to be added
Publisher's summary[]
A daring, kaleidoscopic novel about the clash of empires and ideas in the sixteenth century that continue to reverberate throughout modernity—a story unlike anything you’ve ever read before.
Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time. Across the ocean in Mexico, the last Aztec emperors play their own games, as 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 world. And in a remote Mexican colony a bishop reads Thomas More’s Utopia and thinks that instead of a parody, it’s a manual.
In this mind-bending, prismatic novel, worlds collide, time coils, traditions break down. There are assassinations and executions, hallucinogenic mushrooms, utopias, carnal liaisons and papal dramas, artistic and religious revolutions, love stories and war stories. A dazzlingly original voice and a postmodern visionary, Álvaro Enrigue tells a grand adventure of the dawn of the modern era in this short, powerful punch of a novel. Game, set, match.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Pope's Rhinoceros | Lawrence Norfolk | 1996 | A novel with similar themes set around the same time |
| Night of Sorrows | Frances Sherwood | 2006 | Another novel with La Malinche as a major character |
| Mason & Dixon | Thomas Pynchon | 1997 | A historical novel with similar themes |
| 2666 | Roberto Bolaño | 2004 | A novel with somewhat similar themes |
Sources[]
- Goodreads