Laura Esquivel's Mexican Fictions Like Water for Chocolate - The Law of Love - Swift as Desire - Malinche: A Novel

by Willingham, Elizabeth Moore

• ISBN13: 9781845195564
• ISBN10: 1845195566
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-09-19
• Publisher: Sussex Academic Press

Summary

Outstanding essayists in Latin American literature and film explore Laura Esquivel's critical reputation, contextualise her work in literary movements, and consider her four novels and the film based on Like Water for Chocolate from diverse critical perspectives. The Editor's "An Introduction to Esquivel Criticism" reviews twenty-years of global praise and condemnation. Elena Poniatowska, in an essay provided in the original Spanish and in translation, reflects on her first reading of Like Water for Chocolate. From unique critical perspectives, Jeffrey Oxford, Patrick Duffey, and Debra Andrist probe the novel as film and fiction. The Reverend Dr Stephen Butler Murray explores the author's spiritual focus, and cultural geographer Maria Elena Christie uses words and images to compare Mexican kitchen-space and Esquivel's first novel. Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez and Lydia H Rodríguez affirm divergent readings of The Law of Love, and Elizabeth M Willingham reads contested national identity in Swift as Desire. Jeanne L Gillespie and Ryan F Long approach Malinche: A Novel through historical documents and popular and religious culture. In the closing essay of the volume, Alberto Julián Pérez contextualises Esquivel's fiction within Feminist and Hispanic literary movements. A glossary and translations recommend the work to English-speaking readers and those new to studies of Hispanic fiction and film. This book is the first in-depth review and assessment of twenty years of Esquivel criticism. The comparative and theoretical views presented of each of Esquivel's four novels and the film of Like Water for Chocolate provide suggestions for future literary research.

Table of Contents

The Essays

Apparatus

Translations into English

Style, notes, & chronology

Using the Works Cited

A Biography of Laura Esquivel

An Introduction to Esquivel Criticism

Like Water for Chocolate Like Water for Chocolate: The novels early critical reception

Like Water for Chocolate: The novel & the critics

Like Water for Chocolate: The film & the critics

The Law of Love

Swift as Desire

Malinche: A Novel

Future directions in Esquivel criticism

Laura Esquivels Mexican Chocolate

El chocolate mexicano de Laura Esquivel

Crossing Gender Borders: Subversion of Cinematic Melodrama in Like Water for Chocolate

Unmasked Men: Sex Roles in Like Water for Chocolate

The Absence of God & the Presence of Ancestors in Laura Esquivels Like Water for Chocolate

Gendered Spaces, Gendered Knowledge: A Cultural Geography of Kitchenspace in Central Mexico

Transformation, Code, & Mimesis: Healing the Family in Like Water for Chocolate

Cultural Identity & the Cosmos: Laura Esquivels Predictions for a New Millennium in The Law of Love

Laura Esquivels Quantum Leap in The Law of Love

The Two Mexicos of Swift as Desire

Malinche: Fleshing out the Foundational Fictions of the Conquest of Mexico

Esquivels Malinalli: Refusing the Last Word on La Malinche

Esquivels Fiction in the Context of Latin American Womens Writing

Glossary of Spanish & Nahuatl Words & Phrases

Index

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