Malinche
A Novel
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4.0 • 9 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Bestselling author of Like Water for Chocolate Laura Esquivel returns with Malinche, an extraordinary retelling of the passionate and tragic love affair during the conquest of the Aztecs between the conquistador Cortez and his Indian interpreter Malinalli.
When Malinalli, a member of the tribe conquered by the Aztec warriors, first meets the conquistador Hernán Cortés and becomes his interpreter, she—like many—believes him to be the reincarnated forefather god of her tribe. Naturally, she assumes she must welcome him, and help him destroy the Aztec empire and free her people. The two fall passionately in love, but Malinalli soon realizes that Cortés's thirst for conquest is all too human, and that he is willing to destroy anyone, even his own men—and even their own love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Through the eyes of the historical native woman of the novel's title, Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate) reveals the defeat and destruction of Montezuma's 16th-century Mexicas empire at the hands of Spanish conquistador Hern n Cort s. Malinche, also called Malinalli, was sold into slavery as a child and later became "The Tongue," Cort s's interpreter and lover remembered by history as a traitor for her contribution to the brutal Spanish triumph. In her lyrical but flawed fifth novel, Esquivel details richly imagined complications for a woman trapped between the ancient Mexicas civilization and the Spaniards. Esquivel revels in descriptions of the role of ancient gods in native life and Malinalli's theological musings on the similarities between her belief system and Christianity. But what the book offers in anthropological specificity, it lacks in narrative immediacy, even while Esquivel also imagines Cort s's point of view. The author also packs the arc of Malinalli's life into a relatively short novel: she bears Cort s an illegitimate son, marries another Spaniard and has a daughter before her sad demise. The resulting disjointed storytelling gives short shrift to this complex heroine, a woman whose role in Mexican history is controversial to this day. 13-city author tour.
