Alumni Book Club: You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue

Wednesday, Dec 4, 2025
7:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.
On Zoom

Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés enters the city of Tenochtitlan – today’s Mexico City. Later that day, he will meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.

Cortés is accompanied by his captains, his troops, his prized horses, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn friar, and Malinalli, an enslaved, strategic Nahua princess. After nearly bungling their entrance to the city, the Spaniards are greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely Aztec princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of Moctezuma. As they await their meeting with the emperor – who is at a political and spiritual crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get by – Cortés and his entourage are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the place, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the chances of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire. And what if… they don’t?

You Dreamed of Empires brings Tenochtitlan to life at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Álvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counterattack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.d practical, meaningful ideas to help us pay attention to the people we are becoming. For ourselves, our communities and the world.

All Book Club meetings are 7:00-8:15 p.m. ET via Zoom. Brain Lair Books, an independent bookstore in South Bend, sends a free book to the first 15 people who sign up each month on behalf of the ISC.