Terra Nostra

From one of Mexico's most revered authors, an award-winning epic novel exploring history, culture, and the human condition.

Terra Nostra is one of the great masterpieces of modern Latin American fiction. Concerned with nothing less than the history of Spain and of South America, with the Indian Gods and with Christianity, with the birth, the passion, and the death of civilizations, Fuentes's great novel is, indeed, that rare creation—the total work of art.

Magnificently translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Terra Nostra is, as Milan Kundera says in his afterword, “the spreading out of the novel, the exploration of its possibilities, the voyage to the edge of what only a novelist can see and say.”

“Its conception is truly grand, its perceptions often unique, its energy compelling and the inventiveness and audacity of some of its narrative maneuvers absolutely breathtaking; the animated paintings, the talking mirrors, the time machines and metamorphosing mummies, the fusion of history, myth and fiction, the variations on themes and dreams, the interweaving or rich, violent, beautiful, grotesque, mysterious, even magical images—not without reason has this book been likened to a vast and intricate tapestry.” —New York Times