Books by Laura Esquivel

Relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks.

Don Jubilo entered the world smiling rather than crying like other babies, and his life mission is to bring happiness to everyone's lives. Even as young boy, acting as interpreter between his warring Mayan grandmother and his Spanish-speaking mother, he mistranslates words of spite into words of respect, so that their mutual hatred turns to love.

A highly original novel by one of Mexico's most important storytellers, Como agua para chocolate is written in the style of the serialized novels so popular in the nineteenth century. Each chapter starts with a traditional northern Mexican recipe. In effect, cooking is the exclusive means of expression open to the female protagonist, who doesn't entirely conform to the limited role that both society and her family have given her. Como agua para chocolate is a fresco of rural Mexican society between 1910 and 1933, and a portrayal of the deep-rooted traditions that the novel's heroine confronts. Tita, the youngest child of a charismatic woman, is trapped in a destiny predetermined at birth: family tradition dictates that the youngest daughter must renounce marriage and devote herself to the care of her mother. Tita, however, is passionately in love with Pedro, her eldest sister's husband. She is also pursued by John Brown, an American doctor who offers her an austere and serene form of love. Twenty years later, Tita and Pedro finally come together through fire and death.