1783. Rodrigo and Sancho Beltrán came to this Andean valley from Spain and found behind barred windows the beautiful twin sisters who were last in the line of the illustrious conquistador de Labastida. From his deathbed their father had sworn the sisters to spinsterhood and imprisoned them in his house rather than let them debase the ancient name or, worse still, pass on his wealth to local peasants. Spanish and noble, Rodrigo and Sancho married the sisters and the Beltrán dynasty was born - a dynasty that ruled the valley for 200 years and was now returning to the dust.

1955. Lydia Sinclair was scarcely out of school when she fell in love with Don Diego Beltrán and left England behind for her husband's estate in the Andes. Benito, the family's oldest retainer, said that through her the valley would not be forgotten: 'Fate has brought you here to us, to chronicle our decline.' In the night's stillness he told her of romance and battle, drought and pestilence, splendour and suffering.

The characters in the valley's tumultuous history rose up before Lydia as if they still roamed the dusty slopes: Admiral Silence who enjoyed no one's company so decided never to speak again; General Mario who prophesied the ruin of their valley as he secretly decayed from leprosy behind a mask; María Candelaria whose beauty and wildness brought on a massacre of nearly half of the Beltráns; la comadre Matilde, the peasant woman of striking ugliness whom people bribed to stay in their houses because her departure left a sense of ill omen; the aged sisters who sat amidst hoards of china and gambled at cards for their every move. Finally there was Cristóbal Beltrán, who sifted the sand in the hourglass, ageless and all-knowing and indestructable.

Out of the upheaval and decay come a narrative and language astonishing in their fertility.

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award