Like Water for Chocolate is undoubtedly one of the most widely well-known Mexican works on the international scale. It has been first published in 1989 in Spanish, then in 1992 in English, and then translated to over thirty languages. Like Water for Chocolate, written by Laura Esquivel, gained enormous popularity among literary works in the United States. In 1992, the film's script, that was based on the novel, swept the prestigious Ariel Awards. In 1993, it became the biggest grossing foreign film ever released in the United States. In the same year, the novel glimmers by being on the New York Times bestsellers list, then by receiving the American Bookseller Book of the Year Award in 1994. Being the first foreign writer who wins this prize,
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It has inspired many great diverse literary critics and scholars to believe that the crossover success that both the novel and the film endowed with, owe to Esquivel's featured style and her exceptional representation of culinary eroticism such as the exquisite recipes and dishes that permeate the novel. Maria Elena de Valdes praises Esquivel for “revealing the autonomy and power which Mexican women exercised in the domestic sphere within a larger culture where they were virtually powerless”(87). She adds: “through her focus on domesticity and cooking in her first novel, Esquivel reveals the roles and choices which women used to control their lives, to develop their creativity and to express their individuality.[...] Like Water for Chocolate will have particular resonance with Latin American women who will identify their own situation and that of their female ancestors with that of the characters in the …show more content…
It is the story of a young Mexican woman named Tita, who experiences tremendous changes in an uncommon space, the kitchen. The novel, which models its structure after a cookbook, is mainly set in the De la Garza kitchen which emerges as the most significant part of the house. In an interview with BBC Mundo, Esquivel mentions that cooking food was the central motivation behind her novel. She revalues the space of the kitchen as a center for sentiments for the protagonist as the kitchen is“a sacred place where one […] engages in communion with the true origin and with the beyond”(1). In her critical analysis of Like Water for Chocolate, Kathleen Batstone examines how “Esquivel reconstructs the kitchen as site of transcendence and transformation, beyond the customary space for meal preparation. Employing magical realism as an effective tool to transfer the protagonist's emotions into the prepared meal and then into the body of the consumer, Esquivel's narrative grants a supernatural quality to cooking and the kitchen space, thus deconstructing traditional perceptions of the kitchen as a socially designated
It has inspired many great diverse literary critics and scholars to believe that the crossover success that both the novel and the film endowed with, owe to Esquivel's featured style and her exceptional representation of culinary eroticism such as the exquisite recipes and dishes that permeate the novel. Maria Elena de Valdes praises Esquivel for “revealing the autonomy and power which Mexican women exercised in the domestic sphere within a larger culture where they were virtually powerless”(87). She adds: “through her focus on domesticity and cooking in her first novel, Esquivel reveals the roles and choices which women used to control their lives, to develop their creativity and to express their individuality.[...] Like Water for Chocolate will have particular resonance with Latin American women who will identify their own situation and that of their female ancestors with that of the characters in the …show more content…
It is the story of a young Mexican woman named Tita, who experiences tremendous changes in an uncommon space, the kitchen. The novel, which models its structure after a cookbook, is mainly set in the De la Garza kitchen which emerges as the most significant part of the house. In an interview with BBC Mundo, Esquivel mentions that cooking food was the central motivation behind her novel. She revalues the space of the kitchen as a center for sentiments for the protagonist as the kitchen is“a sacred place where one […] engages in communion with the true origin and with the beyond”(1). In her critical analysis of Like Water for Chocolate, Kathleen Batstone examines how “Esquivel reconstructs the kitchen as site of transcendence and transformation, beyond the customary space for meal preparation. Employing magical realism as an effective tool to transfer the protagonist's emotions into the prepared meal and then into the body of the consumer, Esquivel's narrative grants a supernatural quality to cooking and the kitchen space, thus deconstructing traditional perceptions of the kitchen as a socially designated