Description

Laura Esquivel is best known for her first novel, Like Water for Chocolate, published in 1989, translated into 36 languages, and made into a first-rate motion picture.

Since then, her novels include The Law of Love, Swift as Desire, and her most recent novel, Malinche, which has been translated into thirteen foreign languages. She has also published the children’s story, Estrellita Marinera, the essay entitled “The Book of Emotions”, and a philosophical treatise called Intimate Suculencias Kitchen.

Before she became a novelist, she had considerable experience in theater and screenwriting. Along with a group of other teachers, she founded the Theatre Workshop and Children’s Literature, as a part of the Ministry of Education.

As a writer, she has dabbled in theater, screenwriting, television, film, and dramatic creation, and has participated as an advisor in Screenplays Workshop sponsored by the Toscano of Mexico Foundation and the Sundance Institute in the USA.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including Ariel Award granted by the Mexican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Silver Hugo Award, awarded by the Chicago International Film Festival, and the award for best screenplay at the Houston Film Festival.

In 1993 she received the prestigious ABBY Award (American Booksellers Book of the Year), awarded by the American Booksellers Association of USA. In 2004, the University of Verona awarded her the Giuseppe Acerbi prize. In 2007, she was awarded the Smithsonian Legacy Award from the Smithsonian Latino Center.

In 2010, Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile, awarded her the Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic Merit and Culture.  And in 2011, she received the Order of Caballero Aguila award, the Jaime Sabines medal, and medal of Omecihuatl.

She was born and raised in Mexico City.