Malinche

Malinche by Laura Esquivel This is an extraordinary
retelling of the passionate and tragic love between the
conquistador Cortez and the Indian woman Malinalli his
interpreter during his conquest of the Aztecs. Malinallis
Indian tribe has been conquered by the warrior Aztecs.
When her father is killed in battle she is raised by her
wisewoman grandmother who imparts to her the knowledge
that their founding forefather god Quetzalcoatl had
abandoned them after being made drunk by a trickster god
and committing incest with his sister. But he was
determined to return with the rising sun and save her
tribe from their present captivity. When Malinalli meets
Cortez she like many suspects that he is the returning
Quetzalcoatl and assumes her task is to welcome him and
help him destroy the Aztec empire and free her people. The
two fall passionately in love but Malinalli gradually
comes to realize that Cortezs thirst for conquest is all
too human and that for gold and power he is willing to
destroy anyone even his own men even their own love.