For Álvaro Enrigue, a novelist fascinated with historical detail, the first meeting of the Aztecs and Spanish conquistadors is the obsession of a lifetime. He brings it to life in “You Dreamed of Empires.”
Matar won a Pulitzer Prize for his memoir, “The Return,” mourning his homeland and his father. In his new novel, he turns to the untranslatability of exile — and friendship.
As executive editor from 1994 to 2001, he oversaw a period of growth, expanding national and international readerships, creating new sections and ushering in the digital age with a Times website.