The Hummingbird's Daughter (Paperback)

by Luis Alberto Urrea (Author) "ON THE COOL OCTOBER MORNING when Cayetana Chavez brought her baby to light, it was the start of that season in Sinaloa when the humid..." (more)
Key Phrases: stock pond, Don Tomas, Don Lauro, Don Teofano (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. "Her powers were growing now, like her body. No one knew where the strange things came from. Some said they sprang up in her after the desert sojourn with Huila. Some said they came from somewhere else, some deep inner landscape no one could touch. That they had been there all along." Teresita, the real-life "Saint of Cabora," was born in 1873 to a 14-year-old Indian girl impregnated by a prosperous rancher near the Mexico-Arizona border. Raised in dire poverty by an abusive aunt, the little girl still learned music and horsemanship and even to read: she was a "chosen child," showing such remarkable healing powers that the ranch's medicine woman took her as an apprentice, and the rancher, Don Tomás Urrea, took her—barefoot and dirty—into his own household. At 16, Teresita was raped, lapsed into a coma and apparently died. At her wake, though, she sat up in her coffin and declared that it was not for her. Pilgrims came to her by the thousands, even as the Catholic Church denounced her as a heretic; she was also accused of fomenting an Indian uprising against Mexico and, at 19, sentenced to be shot. From this already tumultuous tale of his great-aunt Teresa, American Book Award–winner Urrea (The Devil's Highway) fashions an astonishing novel set against the guerrilla violence of post–Civil War southwestern border disputes and incipient revolution. His brilliant prose is saturated with the cadences and insights of Latin-American magical realism and tempered by his exacting reporter's eye and extensive historical investigation. The book is wildly romantic, sweeping in its effect, employing the techniques of Catholic hagiography, Western fairy tale, Indian legend and everyday family folklore against the gritty historical realities of war, poverty, prejudice, lawlessness, torture and genocide. Urrea effortlessly links Teresita's supernatural calling to the turmoil of the times, concealing substantial intellectual content behind effervescent storytelling and considerable humor.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker
Twenty years in the making, Urrea's epic novel recounts the true story of his great-aunt Teresita. In 1873, amid the political turbulence of General Porfirio Díaz's Mexican republic, Teresita is born to a fourteen-year-old Indian girl, "mounted and forgotten" by her white master. Don Tomàs Urrea later takes his illegitimate daughter into his home, where she learns to bathe every week and read "Las Hermanas Brontë." But Teresita also continues a folk education as a curandera, discovering healing powers and a mystical relationship with God. Indian pilgrims swarm to the Urrea ranch, where "St. Teresita," a mestiza Joan of Arc, kindles in them a powerful faith in God and a perilous hunger for revolution. The novel brings to life not only the deeply pious figure whom Díaz himself dubbed "the Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico" but also the blood-soaked landscape of pre-revolutionary Mexico.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; Later Printing edition (April 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316154520
• ISBN-13: 978-0316154529
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,535 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Sumptuous, Dazzling Novel, May 20, 2005

By	Daniel Olivas (West Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Hummingbird's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

In the harsh yet thriving landscape of Mexico, circa 1880, the poor, illiterate and unmarried Yaqui woman (known by her tribe as The Hummingbird), gave birth to Teresita with the help of the town's healer, the curandera called Huila. Huila-one of Urrea's most remarkable creations-is as cantankerous as she is powerful. So powerful in fact that she lives in a room behind the kitchen of the great hacienda owned by the wealthy Don Tomás Urrea. Don Tomás does not care much for religion but he knows that Huila is an asset and puts up with her magic as much as Huila puts up with her patrón's habit of spreading his seed despite having a beautiful, attentive wife and several children who populate the hacienda. Teresita eventually-and literally-wanders into Don Tomás's life and is subsequently taken under Huila's wing. Huila notices two things about this unusual girl: she resembles the Urrea family and she possesses the power to heal. Don Tomás ultimately owns up to paternity and is determined to make a lady out of this barefooted urchin. But as Teresita matures, her powers grow until all know that she is the curandera women should go to when they are about to give birth or when a child becomes ill. Then one day, when Teresita goes out to the fields, she is raped, beaten and eventually dies. But on the third day, at the end of burial preparations, in the midst of five mourning women, Teresita awakes. The town is abuzz with news of this miracle. With her resurrection comes greater healing powers and, of course, fame. The Yaquis, as well as other native tribes, mestizos, and even Americans, make pilgrimages to the Urrea hacienda. The Catholic Church views this "saint" as a heretic, the vicious and corrupt government of Porfirio Díaz considers the girl a threat, and revolutionaries want to insinuate themselves into her sphere of influence for their own political cause.

The climax brilliantly mirrors the immigrant's experience of seeking safe passage to a foreign land while relying on loved ones as well as fate. Urrea, who is the award-winning author of ten books-fiction, non-fiction and poetry-tells us in an author's note that Teresa Urrea "was a real person"-his aunt. The Hummingbird's Daughter is his fictionalization of family lore based on twenty years of intense research and interviews. The result resonates with such passion and beauty that it doesn't matter whether Teresita's legend is based more on a people's wishful thinking than truth. The Hummingbird's Daughter is a sumptuous, dazzling novel to which no review can do justice; one simply must read it.

[The full review first appeared in The Elegant Variation.]

58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Para Dar A Luz, August 3, 2005

By	Margaret L. McQuaid "magmcq" (Anchorage, Alaska United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Hummingbird's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

In Latin America, instead of saying "to give birth to", the people say "para dar a luz", to bring to the light. Luis Urrea has brought to the light his remarkable great-aunt, La Teresita, a curandera who came to be known as la Santa de Cabora. His painstaking research has resulted in what I can only term a biography written in the style of magical realism. (I've never been able to understand the difference between magic and realism in the first place.) This book is part cultural anthropology, part Mexican history, and wholly enchanting. Urrea is a powerful, masterly writer who sure knows his stuff. He brings his readers to the light of understanding, of feeling, of acknowledgement. I think he may have inherited some of his ancestor's talent for transformation.

Teresita Urrea was a real person. She is buried in a small town in eastern Arizona, where I spent some time growing up. I went to her graveside at age 17, looking only for cheap thrills. (We thought back then that the grave contained the body of a woman who had fought in the Mexican Revolution with Pancho Villa, and whose ghost was rumored to haunt the cemetary.) I wanted to be scared. Instead, on that bitterly cold November night, I found the air around her grave to be soft and warm, and I could smell roses. No roses bloom in the Clifton cemetary in November. Instead of being frightened, I came away with what was then an inexplicable sense of peace. I didn't understand at the time, but now I do. Her healing ways still linger.

Luis Urrea has given us the spirit of La Teresa, warm, alive, and still wearing the scent of roses. I loved reading this book. You will too.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars entrancing, painful, wonderful, unforgettable and very special, September 11, 2005

By	Charlie_in_la "charlie" (los angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hummingbird's Daughter: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read a lot of books. Some are just for fun, some are silly, some are educational, some are not very good. But, every now and then, I find one that is so special that I will read it again, and probably again a few more times.

You can read a "summary" of the book in other reviews, both publishers' and readers'. So, why did I like it and why should you read it.

First, the story is incredible. A child born in poverty begins to show amazing intelligence, skills...and grows to womanhood having had profound effect on her country of birth. Truth is indeed "stranger than fiction".

Second, the author has an amazing talent with words. He gives you the sights, sounds, smells of the world in which Teresita lived. He also uses words to bring each person to life. I actually called a friend to share a quote...Tomas Urrea to Lauro Aguirre...."Although it is true that you are insufferable and irritating, and rightly famed for your endless posturing and platudinous pontificating..." (don't worry, potential reader, though, the book is not full of big words, just, occasionally, one creeps in...I loved that quote because it reminded me of someone.)

Third, I was able to experience a time and place distant from me. Some of what happened was horrific, but, it happened. I was able to begin to understand.

Finally, I loved this book, and will read it again because it contains a message of love and hope that I can understand.

Books do many things, entertain, enlighten and sometimes enrich.

This book enriches, enlightens and entertains.