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Kalpa Imperial
  • Published: 16 July 2026
  • ISBN: 9781837312337
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256
Categories:

Kalpa Imperial

The Greatest Empire That Never Was

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A dazzling tapestry of myth, fantasy and folk tale from Argentina's great writer of speculative fiction, in a translation by Ursula K. Le Guin

In city squares and golden palaces, a series of storytellers recount the history of the greatest Empire that never was: a history in which orphans rise from the underworld to the throne, mad emperors raze cities, captive dancers induce fatal delirium and murderous empresses plot against their own children.

Angélica Gorodischer’s novel, masterfully translated by Ursula K. Le Guin, conjures a vivid fictional universe of labyrinthine cities, desert caravans and the lawless South – and of an Empire fated to rise, fall and rise again.
  • Published: 16 July 2026
  • ISBN: 9781837312337
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 256
Categories:

About the author

Angélica Gorodischer

Although born in Buenos Aires, Angélica Gorodischer (1928-2022) was most closely associated with the city of Rosario, her home since childhood and also the home of her famous character, Trafalgar Medrano. She wrote over twenty books, including Trafalgar (1979) and the fantastical Kalpa Imperial (1983-4), which was translated into English by Ursula K. Le Guin. Her work has been compared to that of Borges and Calvino, and she won numerous literary prizes as well as an award for her contribution to women's rights. In 2011 she received a World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement.

Aél

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Praise for Kalpa Imperial

Kalpa Imperial is a landmark of Spanish-language imaginative fiction: a lyrical work that reimagines fantasy and myth from one of Argentina’s most brilliant writers

Mariana Enriquez, author of, Things We Lost in the Fire

Nabokovian in its accretion of strange and rich detail, making the story seem at once scientific and dreamlike

Time Out

This Scheherazade-like collection of linked tales, loosely connected by a storyteller, form the rich history of an imaginary civilization ... Never heavy-handed, the stories flow like fables and gradually show the futility of seeking power and trying to rule others. The dreamy, ancient voice is not unlike Le Guin’s, and this collection should appeal to her fans as well as to those of literary fantasy and Latin American fiction

Library Journal (Starred Review)

Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novel The Left Hand of Darkness is one of science fiction’s finest achievements, has translated a work by the Argentine writer Angelica Gorodischer. Kalpa Imperial recounts the history of an imaginary empire in a series of tales that adopt the voice of a marketplace storyteller. ... While the point of each tale eludes paraphrase, the cumulative burden is the imperfectibility of human society... Le Guin’s translation, which ranges from blunt to elegant to oracular, seems like the ideal medium for this grim if inescapable message

New York Times Book Review