A tall, yellow-haired young European traveler calling himself 'Mogor dell 'Amore', the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child of a lost Mughal princess, the youngest sister of Akbar's grandfather Babar: Qara Koz, 'Lady Black Eyes', a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, who is taken captive first by an Uzbek warlord, then by the Shah of Persia, and finally becomes the lover of a certain Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune, commander of the armies of the Ottoman Sultan. When Argalia returns home with his Mughal mistress the city is mesmerized by her presence, and much trouble ensues."The Enchantress of Florence" is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man's world. It brings together two cities that barely know each other - the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire and the treachery of sons, and the equally sensual Florentine world of powerful courtesans, humanist philosophy and inhuman torture, where Argalia's boyhood friend 'il Machia' - Niccolo Machiavelli - is learning, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. These two worlds, so far apart, turn out to be uncannily alike, and the enchantments of women hold sway over them both. But is Mogor's story true? And if so, then what happened to the lost princess? And if he's a liar, must he die?

薩曼·魯西迪 (1947-)，英國著名作傢。生於印度孟買一個穆斯林傢庭，在英國接受教育。一九七五年他的第一部小說齣版，第二部小說《午夜之子》為他贏得瞭國際聲譽。之後他的一係列作品深入探討瞭曆史和哲學問題，被稱為“後殖民文學教父”。在世界文壇，魯西迪是所有國際大奬的寵 兒，他高産且作品高質量，經得專業人士的品評，也贏得無數讀者的好評，受到君特·格拉斯、戈迪默、米蘭·昆德拉等世界文學大師的一緻推崇。他的《午夜之子》，三次獲得布剋奬，可謂“布剋奬”之尊。魯西迪目前共齣版長篇小說十部、短篇小說集三部，另有兩部兒童作品、一部迴憶錄及十餘部非小說作品。主要作品有《午夜之子》《羞恥》《摩爾人的最後嘆息》《她腳下的土地》《小醜薩利瑪》《佛羅倫薩的神女》等。

譯者 劉凱芳 (1941-2016)，廈門大學外文學院英語係教授，《廈門大學學報（哲社版）》編委。長期從事英語語言文學教學與文學翻譯工作。譯作有《可以吃的女人》、《品徹·馬丁》、《叛逆年代》《愛上浪漫》《處女與吉普賽人》、《匹剋威剋外傳》等，另有大量的中短篇譯作發錶於《外國文藝》《世界文學》等刊物。