Like Water for Chocolate is the story of Tita, the youngest of three daughters born to Mama Elena, the tyrannical owner of the De La Garza ranch. The novel achieved overwhelming popularity in her native Mexico where it was a best seller, in Latin America, and in the United States where it spent several weeks on the New York Times Book Review best-seller list. However, producers told her the script would be too costly to produce so she transformed it into a novel. She conceived of her first novel Like Water for Chocolate originally as a screenplay. She was nominated for the Mexican Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences Ariel Award for best screenplay for Chido Guan, el Tacos de Oro (1985). Famed Mexican director Alfonso Arau, who was then her husband, encouraged Esquivel to continue writing, training her to write screenplays. Unable to find adequate plays, she began to write her own and from this she progressed to writing for children’s public television in Mexico. While teaching kindergarten for eight years, Esquivel became increasingly involved in children’s theater workshops. This magic realist tradition was carried on by Esquivel when she became a novelist.

This includes magic realism, or the use of fantastic or super-natural elements within an otherwise realistic story. Esquivel grew up during a time when Latin American fiction was enjoying substantial worldwide popularity, known as the ‘‘boom.’’ This was due to authors such as Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Mario Vargas Llosa, who hailed from different Latin American countries but together developed and refined the qualities associated with modern Latin fiction. Growing up in Mexico, she was educated at Escuela Normal de Maestros. Esquivel was born on September 30, 1950, in Mexico City, the daughter of Julio Caesar, a telegraph operator, and josephine Esquivel. Works in Biographical and Historical ContextĬhild of the “Boom”. Employing the brand of magic realism that Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez popularized, Esquivel blends culinary knowledge, sensuality, and alchemy with fables and cultural lore. Like Water for Chocolate was a best seller in the United States. Esquivel merges folk stories, magic realism, and a feminist perspective in her writing, garnering both popular and critical acclaim.

Reproduced by permission.Ī best-selling, highly respected author in her native Mexico, Laura Esquivel’s first book Like Water for Chocolate (Como Agua Para Chocolate, 1991) was a crossover success, earning her an international reputation.

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