Il tramonto del Quinto Sole
When Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico on 22 April 1519, the Aztec empire was at the height of itspower. Dominating from sea to sea, it is Cem Anahuac, the One World. Yet sinister omens announce aninexorable ruin: the setting of the Fifth Sun, that is, of the fifth cosmic cycle of creation and destruction. Cuauhtlatoatzin, the Talking Eagle, is already fifty years old when he witnesses among the crowd thearrival of the Spanish army in Tenochtitlan, welcomed with all honours by the Emperor Montezuma II. He is an exemplary subject, born a peasant, elevated to the rank of ‘venerable’ for civil merits and then to the rank of cowherd of a flourishing agricultural estate. He thought he had already seen everything inlife, but suddenly destiny opens a door to infinity: wasn’t this the Only World? So where did these tall, pale, red-haired iron warriors come from, riding mysterious animals and possessing weapons capable ofdestroying everything they hit with a roar? And what will remain of the great Aztec people abandonedby their gods? Before knowing the answers, Aquila Parlante will have to witness the bloody ordeal of his people, right up to the extreme sacrifice.
Matteo Soldi was born in Florence, where he lives with his family and works. He has published Il tesoro di Carpanea (Carpanea’s Treasure), a gothic novel set in the nine-teenth-century Po valley, and the crime novel Cortina di sangue (Blood curtain), winner of the Giallo Indipendente prize at the 2019 Turin Fair.
