One of the great masterpieces of modern Latin American fiction, Terra Nostra is 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 skillfully blends a wide range of literary forms, stories within stories, Mexican and Spanish myth, and famous literary characters in this novel that is both a historical epic and an apocalyptic vision of modern times. Terra Nostra is that most ambitious and rare of creations – a total work of art.“This extraordinary novel fuses fact and fiction, past and future into one continuum. Centering on Philip II of Spain (Felipe El Senor), chronological time and conventional history are abolished and Fuentes’ Felipe builds El Escorial, marries England's Elizabeth Tudor and witnesses the discovery of the New World.Entwining the miraculous and the fantastic with the grim and grotesque, Terra Nostra stands as a work of sustained allegory and imagination that encapsulates both the New World's future and the decay of Spanish glory.”