The Dark Jester recounts Pizarro's conquest of Peru in a fictional meditation on the encounter between Spanish colonialism and Inca civilisation, and the spiritual and cultural consequences of this meeting. Harris imagines a dialogue between the conquistador and Atahualpa, ruler of the Incas, being held to ransom until a room is filled with golden artefacts. Implicit in this is the author's ambition to reclaim as a source of inspiration, not only the history and pre-history of the Americas, but the very landscape itself.