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News of the Empire
Locked away in Belgium’s Bouchout Castle for 60 years, Empress Carlota of Mexico clings to the ghost of her husband, Emperor Maximilian I, and the fleeting empire they built. In *News of the Empire*, Fernando del Paso weaves Carlota’s fragmented, mad recollections with the brutal reality of Mexico’s short-lived Second Empire. Born from Napoleon III’s imperial ambitions—taking advantage of the U.S. Civil War to install a European puppet—Maximilian, a Habsburg archduke, is lured by dreams of building a progressive New World monarchy. But their reign collapses as French troops withdraw, Mexican republicans led by Benito Juárez fight back, and betrayal eats away at the empire’s core. Maximilian’s execution in 1867 pushes Carlota into irreversible madness, her life a tragic testament to the cost of colonial meddling, idealism crushed by geopolitics, and love enduring beyond empire and sanity. This sweeping narrative bridges European court intrigue and Mexican national struggle, revealing the human toll of a forgotten chapter in hemispheric history.
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