A Memory Called Empire (2019)

The politics here is seduction. Mahit Dzmare comes to the Teixcalaanli capital as ambassador for Lsel, a small independent mining station, steeped in the empire's language and verse, and that fluency is both her best tool and her danger, because Teixcalaan wants Lsel and its courtiers make politics out of poetry. Her predecessor is dead, her only guide is an implanted copy of his memories fifteen years out of date, and the ageing emperor's succession is open. Arkady Martine is a historian of Byzantium, and this Hugo-winning debut grew from her research on the empire's annexation of the Armenian kingdom of Ani in 1044. It shows in how patiently an empire can absorb a neighbour that admires it.