Outstanding essayists in Latin American literature and film explore Laura Esquivel's critical reputation, contextualize 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 Martinez and Lydia H Rodriguez 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 Jeanne L Gillespie and Ryan F Long approach "Malinche: A Novel" through historical documents and popular and religious culture.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 Julian Perez contextualizes 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 novel's 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 Esquivel's 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 Esquivel's 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 Esquivel's Predictions for a New Millennium in The Law of Love; Laura Esquivel's 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; Esquivel's Malinalli: Refusing the Last Word on La Malinche; Esquivel's Fiction in the Context of Latin American Women's Writing; Glossary of Spanish & Nahuatl Words & Phrases; Index.