Esquivel reinterprets the legendary and tragic love affair between Malinche and Hernán Cortés in the lyrical prose that made Like Water for Chocolate a top-selling novel.

Through the eyes of the historical figure Malinche, Laura Esquivel (Water for Chocolate) reveals the destruction of Montezuma's 16th-century Mexicas empire at the hands of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

She refers to Malinche as Malinalli (the girl's original name and a Nahua word for a type of grass) throughout the novel in an effort to reach beyond the myth. Malinalli was sold into slavery as a child and later became "The Tongue," Cortés's interpreter and lover.

Esquivel imagines Malinalli trapped between her native civilization and the Spaniards, her own beliefs - taught in folktales and vivid imagery by her loving grandmother - and Christianity introduced by her new master.

Mallinalli's Diary: A Codex Illustrates the Story

The text is accompanied by the replica of an ancient codex, a re-telling of the story in images, not unlike a modern comic strip. Laura Esquivel says she asked herself, what Mallinalli might have said, had she left behind any primary sources like texts or documents.

Esquivel's nephew Jordi Castells, created the pictorial codex for the novel based on extensive research of pre-Hispanic codices. The result is quite impressive. At the end of the book Esquivel adds a long bibliography demonstrating that she immersed herself in the history, religious thought and astronomical knowledge of the time.

"La Malinche" -- Harlot or Heroine?

Slave, interpreter, secretary, mistress, mother of the first "Mexican"? Her very name still stirs up controversy. "La Malinche" originally meant "the captain's woman". Today "malinche" is used pejoratively to describe someone who denies their heritage, someone who values other cultures above their own.

Historians agree that Malinche was the daughter of a noble Aztec family, who was given away to passing traders after her father died and her mother remarried. By the time Cortés arrived, she had learned the Mayan dialects used in the Yucatan while still understanding Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs and most Non-Mayan Indians.

She was extremely helpful to Cortés in his conquest. Some say that without her, he would have failed. In a letter preserved in the Spanish archives, Cortés said: "After God we owe this conquest of New Spain to Dona Marina" (her Spanish name!).

As the Spanish moved towards the Aztec capital and Montezuma's Palace a pattern emerged. First conflict, then meetings in which Mallinalli played a key role in avoiding more bloodshed. Her work as a translator gives her power, the power to control information. At the same time she knows about the responsibility that comes with her position. Mallinalli never forgets how her grandmother told her "to always honor the word". Therefore we find her struggling between her influence on Cortes as a translator and confidante and her powerlessness as his servant and subordinate.

A Historical Novel: "Lyrical but Flawed"

Some critics have called Esquivel's fifth novel "lyrical but flawed". They acknowledge that it is rich in imaginative descriptions of the ancient Gods and the portrayal of a complex heroine trapped between two worlds. But the events of Malinalli's life - from her childhood through slavery, her time with Cortes, the birth of their son, and her subsequent marriage to one of her countrymen - are forced into a relatively brief narrative which is frequently interrupted by lengthy inner dialogues. The juxtaposition of Mallinalli's reflections with the sketchy story is unfortunate and leaves us with the impression that the author tells rather than shows.

But for those who enjoy historical fiction, Malinche is a fascinating read that takes a myth and recreates a story. The heroine's reevaluation resembles the more recent reinterpretations of Mary Magdalene and sheds light on the way society stigmatizes women’s sexuality and judges women’s intelligence.

Laura Esquivel

Laura Esquivel (born in 1950) currently lives in Mexico City. She uses magical realism to illuminate the ordinary through the supernatural. Her first novel, the folk-love tale Like Water for Chocolate (1989), has sold more than four and a half million copies around the world and was translated in 33 languages. It remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year.

The movie Like Water for Chocolate (1992) was nominated for the Golden Globe and became one of the most popular foreign films ever in the United States. The Mexican author who made a notable contribution to Latin American literature is sometimes compared to Isabel Allende who also uses magical realism as a tool of female empowerment.

Esquivel, Laura: Malinche, New York: Washington Square Press, 2006.

For further reading on Hernán Cortés: Hernán Cortés As Quetzalcoatl

The Elegant Variation. A Literary Weblog by Mark Sarvas.