Description

‘With Red Smoking Mirror, Nick Hunt has created the love child of JG Ballard and Ursula K Le Guin’ – Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender

Shortlisted in the 2024 Edward Stanford Awards for the Viking Award for Fiction with a Sense of Place

‘A beautifully written evocation of a world that never was’ – Guardian

The year is 1521 in the Mexica city of Tenochtitlan. Twenty-nine years earlier, Islamic Spain never fell to the Christians, and Andalus launched a voyage of discovery to the New Maghreb.

For two decades the Jewish merchant Eli Ben Abram, who led the first ships across the sea, has maintained a delicate peace in the Moorish enclave of Moctezuma’s breathtaking capital. But the emperor has been acting strangely, sacrifices are increasing at the temples, a mysterious sickness is spreading through the city, and there are rumours of a hostile army crossing the sea…

‘Highly original’ – Irish Times

Publisher Review

'A vivid, richly inhabited account which rings with authenticity, both in its detail and in its emotional impact' - Cynan Jones, author of Cove 'With Red Smoking Mirror, Nick Hunt has created the love child of JG Ballard and Ursula K Le Guin' - Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender Praise for Nick Hunt: 'Travel writing in excelsis' - Jan Morris 'Nick Hunt has written a glorious book, rich with insight and wit, about walking his way both across and into contemporary Europe' - Robert Macfarlane 'A thrilling and gorgeous tale, packed with meteorological wonder' - Amy Liptrot 'A beautiful, disquieting book' - William Atkins 'Nick Hunt's bold exploration of our hidden continent makes you fall in wonder with the Earth again. Passionate, learned, surprising and revelatory, this is a journey for our times' - Kapka Kassabova