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Title: The Hummingbird's Daughter
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Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
List Price: $14.99
Our Price: $5.00
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| Customer Reviews: |
| The Hummingbird's Daughter by Back Bay Books A Strange Story Based in Fact | "The Hummingbird's Daughter" by Luis Alberto Urrea is a novel based in fact and incidents from his family's history. It tells the story of Teresita, the illegitimate daughter of Tomás Urrea, set in the large haciendas of northern Mexico in the late nineteenth century during the presidency of the dictator Porfirio Diaz.
Teresita is schooled by an old Mayo medicine woman, Huila, a curandera, a kind of female shaman, herbalist, mid-wife, and healer, who trains Teresa in these arts. Because of political troubles and fear of violence, Don Tomás abandons one hacienda and moves his family and a large entourage, including Huila and Teresita, to a different hacienda farther north.
Don Tomás' friend Don Lauro Aguirre, a journalist and political activist, is forced to go to El Paso, Texas, to continue his anti-Diaz campaign, and Teresa adopts his political stance. When word gets out that Teresita can work miracles curing the sick, thousands of pilgrims, who call Teresita a saint, settle in camps around the hacienda of Don Tomás to wait their turn for Teresita's ministrations. One of these pilgrims is a man called Cruz Chávez, the leader of a militia called the Tigers of the Sierra, who styles himself "the Pope of Mexico."
Teresita becomes a problem both for the Church and the government, and she is targeted by spies and potential assassins, and the final part of the book is a long and dangerous train trip with Don Tomás and Teresita held captive in cages, but in the end, they are saved and set free in North America.
| | The Hummingbird's Daughter by Back Bay Books The Hummingbird's Daughter | Urrea's novelized story of his great aunt, the "Saint of Cabora, Teresita Urrea, is an incredible story of an incredible woman. Teresita came out of utter poverty to become an icon of faith for the Yaqi people, especially, but for all Mexican people as well. She endured abuse by her Aunt Tia, was brutally raped by a ranch hand, and nearly killed by her deranged husband (although that piece is NOT in the novel). Teresita became a rallying point, a Joan of Arc, without her overt participation in the Mexican Revolution.
Teresita was, above all, a curandera, a healer with the same kind of powers that we read of in Christian scripture exhibited by Christ. She died as he did at the age of 33. She lived as Christ did, working with, being with, the poor and the outcast. She spoke as Jesus did, speaking truth to power; and, like Jesus, she became an enemy of the State.
Teresita is in my opinion a saint. However, she will most likely never be canonized by the Vatica since she had challenged the Church and preached a rather unorthodox theology. To canonize Tersita Urrea would mean exposing the hideous warts on the nose of the Church itself. The important thing is that the Mexican people have already "canonized" her!
This is a book which I have read and discussed with two different book discussion groups. It was a near unanimous 5-Star hit with both groups. | | The Hummingbird's Daughter by Back Bay Books beautiful book | | Gorgeous and poetic for large stretches; he describes all of Mexico in one brilliant passage about people drinking their morning coffee. Gets a little slow in the later chapters, but he's got a lot of story to tell. The lack of real resolution at the end is intentional - this is apparently only the first half of the saga. Stay tuned.... | | The Hummingbird's Daughter by Back Bay Books GREAT Book Weaving the Tale of Mexico thru Myth and Truth | This TRUE story of author Luis Alberto Urrea's great-aunt Teresita, from her childhood throughout her amazing life in Mexico is not only a gripping and magical tale, but it weaves the country of Mexico into a modern-day myth that has all the flavor of what pre-revolutionary Mexico offered to the world.
You'll feel the country move through your bones, like wisps of a dream on a smoking night around a dying fire, as Teresita discovers and develops her healing and miraculous powers and she and her family learns how to deal with the sad burden of bestowing such gifts. | | The Hummingbird's Daughter by Back Bay Books Dragged myself through this...very disappointed. | | This book was very disappointing to me. I really thought the story line was great. This was about a girl named Teresita who was born illegitimate and whose mother left her when she was a child. Teresita was educated by Huila, the maid of Don Tomas, midwife and medicine woman. Teresita was very gifted in her love for God and love for the people. This love eventually gave her a special gift that made her a saint through out the Mexican land. I thought the author did a poor job of telling this story. First of all, the story didn't have to take 500 pages to be told. I thought the author went off in tangents and elaborated on things that were irrelevant to the story. I also thought his character development was lacking which took away from the story and also left the reader with many unanswered questions. The ending was written like the author was tired of writing and decided to abruptly end the book. On a positive note, the description of the land and the culture of the time was very detailed and placed the reader right in the middle of the history. It just was not enough to hold the book together. | | The Hummingbird's Daughter by Back Bay Books Product Description | | Miracles and passion abound in this mesmerizing novelhailed everywhere as a masterworkthe story of a remarkable young womans sudden sainthood in the revolutionary-era Mexico of the late 19th century. |
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