Auch die Toten

Mexico, about five hundred years ago. Newcomers begin to take possession of Central America. Newcomers who call themselves Castilians, the native inhabitants Indians, and their land the New World. Along with their God, the Europeans bring something else: their hell. Plague, slavery, and the violence of the conquistadors decimate the population and their world along with it.

But what does a person do when their people and their soul are being annihilated? The brilliant Indian Juan responds with radical resistance to ideas, making him a danger even to the Spanish viceroy. An aging mercenary, also named Juan, is hired by His Majesty to find the Indian of the same name. A manhunt begins, leading us not only through Mexico but also through its long and bloody history up to the present day.

Juan Gómez Bárcenas' five-century-spanning novel must be read as a myth of modernity, teaching us the horror on which it is based, like the storm that blows from paradise and piles up debris upon debris. The dead are also traced by colonial history from its beginnings to today, revealing the origins of modern humanity and warning that its destructive power ultimately rebounds upon itself.