A novel about an alternative history of the world - the conquista turned inside out. Awarded the prestigious Prix de l'Académie française 2019.
The novel Civilization stands on this hypothesis: Atahualpa, the ruler of the Inca Empire, lands in the Europe of Charles V. Habsburg. What's it look like here? The Spanish Inquisition, Luther's reforms, nascent capitalism. The miraculous invention of the printing press, which makes paper speak. A monarchy exhausted by endless wars and threatened endlessly by the Turks. A sea plagued by pirates.
A continent crushed by religious and dynastic strife. But most of all, abused, starving, a rebellious people, Toledo Jews, the Moors of Granada, German peasants: possible allies. From Cuzco to Aachen and especially to the Battle of Lepanto - this is the route of the story of the reversal of history, of the world domination that could actually have happened.
It could have happened. There were only three things missing: if the Indians had a horse, a bicycle and the right antidotes, they would have fought off the conquistadors and we would have had to rewrite history.
