A dazzling tapestry of myth, fantasy and folk tale from Argentina's great writer of speculative fiction, in a translation by Ursula K. Le Guin

In city squares and glittering palaces, a series of storytellers recount the many deaths and rebirths of the greatest Empire that never was: a history in which beggars rise to the Golden Throne, mad emperors raze cities and murderous empresses plot against their own children. Angélica Gorodischer’s dreamlike novel, masterfully translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, conjures a labyrinthine fictional universe of magical lore, broken dynasties and an Empire fated to rise, fall and rise again.

‘A landmark of Spanish-language imaginative fiction: a lyrical work that reimagines fantasy and myth from one of Argentina’s most brilliant writers’ Mariana Enriquez, author of Our Share of Night

"Kalpa Imperial is a landmark of Spanish-language imaginative fiction: a lyrical work that reimagines fantasy and myth from one of Argentina’s most brilliant writers" - Things We Lost in the Fire

"Nabokovian in its accretion of strange and rich detail, making the story seem at once scientific and dreamlike" - Time Out

"Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novel The Left Hand of Darkness is one of science fiction’s finest achievements, has translated a work by the Argentine writer Angelica Gorodischer. Kalpa Imperial recounts the history of an imaginary empire in a series of tales that adopt the voice of a marketplace storyteller. ... While the point of each tale eludes paraphrase, the cumulative burden is the imperfectibility of human society... Le Guin’s translation, which ranges from blunt to elegant to oracular, seems like the ideal medium for this grim if inescapable message" - New York Times Book Review

"This Scheherazade-like collection of linked tales, loosely connected by a storyteller, form the rich history of an imaginary civilization ... Never heavy-handed, the stories flow like fables and gradually show the futility of seeking power and trying to rule others. The dreamy, ancient voice is not unlike Le Guin’s, and this collection should appeal to her fans as well as to those of literary fantasy and Latin American fiction" - Library Journal (Starred Review)