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diggRe-imagining 'Malinche'
Who better to imagine the thoughts, feelings and dreams of an Aztec teenage girl.
Who better to imagine the thoughts, feelings and dreams of an Aztec teenage girl taken as an interpreter and a lover by a Spanish conquistador, than Laura Esquivel?
Esquivel’s passionate Like Water for Chocolate (1992) seated her on an elite list of Latin American writers of magical realism, storytelling that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
Now, Esquivel takes on a historical novel with a return to the roots of Mexico City in the early 1500’s. In Malinche: A Novel, (Atria, $22.95) she examines the young woman and her role , during the conquest of the Aztec empire.
Historically, Malinche is seen as a traitor who shares nearly equal blame with the ambitious Hernán Cortés for the decimation of the indigenous. She is painted as a seductress who spawned the mestizo race by giving birth to Cortés son.
Esquivel portrays Malinche as neither a seductress nor a victim, but as someone who understands both the power of her role as translator, the limits of her station as a slave and the immense guilt she feels as a result. It’s La Malinche as we may never have imagined her before.
