Laura Esquivel
Laura Beatriz Esquivel Valdés (born 30 September 1950) is a Mexican novelist, screenwriter and politician. She served in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies for the Morena party from 2015 to 2018.
Her first and best-known book is Like Water for Chocolate (Como agua para chocolate, 1989). It was a big bestseller in Mexico and the United States and was later made into a popular film released in 1992. The novel uses magical realism, mixing everyday life with magical elements, and centers on the life of the heroine Tita during the Mexican Revolution era.
Esquivel studied theatre and children’s theatre at CADAC and has training in preschool education and writing workshops. In the 1970s and 1980s she wrote scripts for Mexican children’s TV, and in 1983 she founded the Centro de Invención Permanente.
Her other works include The Law of Love (La ley del amor, 1995), Swift as Desire (Tan veloz como el deseo, 2001), and Malinche (Malinche: A Novel, 2006). She also published Between Two Fires (2000) and later books such as A Lupita le gusta planchar (2014) and El diario de Tita (2016). Malinche presents the historical figure Doña Marina (La Malinche) in a modern, thoughtful way.
Esquivel co-founded the film production company Tequila Gang with Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Berta Navarro and Rosa Bosch. Her father’s death inspired Tan veloz como el deseo. She was briefly married to actor and director Alfonso Arau, with whom she collaborated on films; she now lives in Mexico City with her husband.
In 2009 she ran as a preliminary candidate for a Local Council seat in District XXVII of Mexico City with the PRD. In 2015 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a plurinominal deputy for Morena. She has also led the Mexico City Cultural Committee and served on the Science & Technology and Environmental Committees for Morena.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:29 (CET).