Críticas Magazine

Adriana V. Lopez

Luis Alberto Urrea Novel Goes Hollywood
September 4, 2008

Everybody's knows that Hollywood's track record in selecting tacky material to fill the gap in Latino film has been deplorable. But this time, they've done okay by deciding to turn Luis Alberto Urrea's critically acclaimed novel The Hummingbird's Daughter into a movie starring Spanish hunk, Antonio Banderas. Originally published by Little Brown, after it took Urrea 20 years to research and write, the epic novel (499 pages) is based on the real life story of Urrea's great aunt Teresa Urrea, aka La Santa de Cabora or Santa Teresita, considered to be a Mexican Joan of Arc. Pan Labyrinth's young starlet,  Ivana Barquero, is set to star as Teresita in the film. Críticas spoke with Urrea in 2007 about his work and about Hummingbird's translation into Spanish as La hija de la chuparrosa.

When it was first published in 2005, The New Yorker called the book "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." Not an easy feat for its Mexican director, Luis Mandoki (Angel Eyes, When a Man Loves a Woman, Message in a Bottle), to live up to on the silver screen conversion. But we shall see. The production is set to start filming in March '09. Yup, and more good news from this Tijuana-born author of 11 books. His latest novel, Into the Beautiful North, is due out in hardcover this April. Kudos, Urrea.

Posted by Adriana V. Lopez on September 4, 2008 | Comments (0)