The Hummingbird's Daughter

Starred review from April 18, 2005
"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. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra.

January 1, 2005
A story inspired by Urrea's great-aunt: as Mexico enters civil war, a young woman with healing powers emerges and is proclaimed a saint. With an eight-city tour.

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2005
More than 20 years in the making, this narrative is based on the first 19 years in the life of the author's Mexican great aunt, Teresa Urrea, or Saint Teresa of Cabora (1873 - 1906). The illegitimate daughter of a poor Indian woman and a wealthy landowner, Teresa is raised on a farm and taught the healing arts by a "curandera" (female healer) until a near-death experience endows her with the divine gift of healing. Teresa's popularity soars, and she serves as the battle cry for an antigovernment insurrection, after which she and her father are exiled to the United States, where she is not officially recognized as a saint owing to the somewhat unorthodox nature of her work. Urrea (creative writing, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago) has written more a novelized biography than a work of fiction; more research seems to have crept in than creativity. And though he excels at describing the atmosphere of a familiar world, the dialog is often stilted, and the telling of the insurrection and miracles lacks conviction. Appropriate for Hispanic collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/05.] -Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.