Laura Esquivel was born in Mexico City in 1950. Her first novel about the magic and mystery of love, Like Water for Chocolate, has sold more than four and a half million copies worldwide and was made into a popular movie. Malinche is an enchanting imaginative account of the legendary Malinalli, an Indian slave turned interpreter who worked with the conquistador Hernán Cortés to overthrow the Aztec empire. She is seen by many Mexicans as a traitor who betrayed her people. In this tale, she is a mysterious woman of wind and water whose yearning for freedom and spiritual affinities are things with which we can all identify.
Malinalli survives her difficult childhood thanks to the love and nurturing of her paternal grandmother who becomes her playmate, ally, and wisdom teacher. She senses that the little girl will be special: "Your tongue will be the word of light, a paintbrush of flowers, the word of colors that with your voice will paint new codices." As a slave, Malinalli meets Cortés and feels that he will protect her. She is convinced that he will put an end to the barbaric human sacrifices during Montezuma's reign. The Spaniard makes her his interpreter since to him the Mayans are as "inscrutable as the dark side of the moon."
She finds being "the Tongue" an enormous responsibility. Sometimes she gets caught up in the power of it and other times she wonders whether it is worth siding with a man who enjoys violence and stands for the complete opposite of what his name means: to be sensitive and respectful. Cortés ravishes his interpreter and marries her but his one and only love is gold. He sees the conquest of Montezuma and his kingdom as the triumph of good over evil, the true over the false gods, and of superior beings over inferior ones. But the slaughter of so many people results in Malinalli losing her center.
Esquivel's novel has a dreamlike quality to it with constant references to wind, water, corn, butterflies, and the gods who are honored in many sacred rituals. The poetic finale is a tour de force in which the many religious strands of the story are tied together in a beautiful ribbon.
