Cover image of "Red Smoking Mirror," an alternate history of Mexico

Most Americans remember the date 1492 as the year Christopher Columbus “discovered” the New World. Europeans recall it for other reasons as well. Because in 1492 the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon conquered the Emirate of Granada, ending 800 years of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula. That year also marked the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from the recently united Kingdom of Spain. Now, in a clever alternate history of Mexico, Nick Hunt explores a world in which none of these things took place. In Red Smoking Mirror, Muslims led by a Jewish pilot land in the Caribbean and on the coast of Mexico. There they establish friendly trade relations with the Native kingdoms they encounter. And they make their way in peace to the magnificent city of Tenochtitlan, present-day Mexico City. There a grand drama plays out as their peaceful world begins to crumble.

The caliph’s law protects the Moors in the New Maghreb

Welcome to the New Maghreb, a land of maiz (corn), tubaq (tobacco), and xocolatl (chocolate). For Eli Ben Abram, the pilot who brought the Moors to the New World, it’s the realization of a dream. Tenochtitlan is far from Qurtubah (Córdoba) and Qadis (Cádiz) in Andalus (Spain), but Eli knows that he and his fellow merchants live under the protection of the caliph‘s law nonetheless. It’s 1521, and many, like himself, have grown rich from the export of tubaq, xocolatl, and other local goods and the importation of manufactured goods from the Old World. But now come reports that Benmessaoud, a fearsome warrior intent on imposing sharia law on Muslim and Native alike, has landed on the coast. And portents of doom from all quarters begin to intrude on Eli’s idyllic life.

Red Smoking Mirror by Nick Hunt (2023) 261 pages ★★★★☆

Artist's rendering of the city of Tenochtitlan, where the action takes place in this alternate history of Mexico
An artist’s rendering of what is known about the architecture of the Mexica capital, Tenochtitlan, as it would have appeared in 1519. Image: Thomas Kole – Wired

Portents of doom intrude on the merchants’ peaceful lives

The land itself foretells doom, as the volcano that towers above the city begins to smoke and send towers of flame into the sky. But far more worrisome for Eli are his wife’s increasingly lengthy absences from their home. Malinala, a Native woman from a coastal kingdom who is a former slave, has been leaving on mysterious “errands” for weeks. New, younger merchants have been turning up in Tenochtitlan, some of them openly hostile to Eli and the community’s other elders. And rumors of Benmessaoud’s approach are multiplying. Clearly, a cataclysm is in the offing, and there is nothing Eli Ben Abram can do about it.

About the author

Photo of Nick Hunt, author of this alternate history of Mexico
Nick Hunt in 2021. John Murray – Travel Writing World

Nick Hunt has written three travel books about walking across Europe as well as a book about birds, a collection of short stories, and articles in numerous leading publications in the UK. This alternate history of Mexico is his first novel. Hunt is English, He currently lives in Bristol.

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