Los Banquetes Para El Gran Rey

A Spanish adventurer in sixteenth-century China... In the resplendent halls of the Forbidden City, where banquets are a spectacle and whispers can change the destiny of the empire, an outsider, Juan Orozco, a Spanish soldier and explorer, arrives at the court of the Son of Heaven after years of adventures and loves in the South China seas. On his way he will meet Flor de Peonía, a concubine of enigmatic beauty and indomitable will who has learned to survive in a kingdom of indecipherable rules, palace intrigues, spies and hidden enemies. As the Ming Empire crumbles, Orozco will receive a secret mission and discover that the greatest danger is not always a sword... With exquisite prose and a vibrant narrative pulse, José María Beneyto brings the fascinating China of the 16th century to life in this story full of exoticism and adventure.

José María Beneyto is a university professor, lawyer, essayist and writer. He is one of the leading Spanish specialists in European affairs and international relations, and a visiting professor at Harvard University and Wuhan University. He has written essays and historical novels with notable success: his novels include Los elementos del mundo (finalist for the Primavera Novel Prize, 2009), El espía que engañó a Hitler (Espasa, 2016) and Las traiciones de Picasso (Turner, 2022). Also of note are essays such as War or Peace? China, the United States and Europe (Deusto, 2024) and "Conquest, War and Peace. Vitoria and Erasmus before Charles V (Cátedra, 2024)