Major female authors ask readers to reexamine the roles of conquistadors’ companions

Female literary giants Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel have recently released books that paint colonial female figures in a more positive light. Mexican author Esquivel, for example, wrote a book arguing that conquistador Hernan Cortes’ companion La Malinche was “a freedom fighter against the Aztecs” instead of the harlot and traitor that some consider her to be.

However, some critics believe that the novels by Allende and Esquivel ignore the violence and genocide committed against indigenous peoples by the Spaniards. In its review of Isabel Allende’s Inés of My Soul, the Miami Herald noted that “there is not much from the other side of the conquista story beyond the Spaniards' view of them as savages”.

Image- Translator Hall of Fame (1992 painting by Rosario Marquardt entitled “La Malinche”)

Links- Guardian UK, Wikipedia, Miami Herald

Tags- literature, history, women, Latin America