Synopses & Reviews
Mexico, 1683. When Concepción Benavidez flees her indenture from the convent of San Jerónimo in Mexico City and sets out to join a band of refugee slaves along with her friend Aléndula, the two are captured by buccaneers in Vera Cruz led by the famed Laurens-Cornille de Graaf, who is running a slave- and provisions ship headed for New England. Aléndula dies on the journey, but Concepción, upon arrival, is renamed Thankful Seagraves and sold to a Boston merchant, Nathaniel Greenwood, who plans to have her care for his crippled father-in-law and manage the Old Man’s chicken farm. Delirious, half-starved, and terrified by her ordeal on board theNeptune, during which the Captain raped her repeatedly, Thankful Seagraves gives birth to a daughter, coveted by Rebecca, Nathaniel's fallow wife, and over the next eight years struggles to adapt herself into English colonial life. With great difficulty she attempts to raise her daughter in the faith and language of New Spain and thus forge a connection between herself and the girl even while Rebecca slowly turns Hanna against her. Like her friend, Tituba Indian, Concepción is a perpetual outsider her mixed-race looks as well as her accent and her Catholic background set her apart and before long she gets swept up in the hysteria of the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, culminating in a shocking accusation by her own daughter, who renounces her mother and declares her a witch.
Review
"[A] book of historical detail and poetic precision. Gaspar de Alba's magic is that her story humanizes the witch hunts of 1692, and, in turn, the witch hunts of today." Sandra Cisneros, author of Caramelo, The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories
Review
"Get ready for a new kind of superhero: Alicia Gaspar de Alba's Calligraphy of the Witch tells the tale of the magnificent Concepción, a Mexican amanuensis to Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who is stolen from Mexico and sold as a slave in 17th century Massachusetts. Renamed Thankful Seagraves, Concepción uses her wit and her enormous strength to survive the perils of this witchburning country, braving brigands, inquisitors, and even the white woman who would steal her only daughter, Jeronima. Gaspar de Alba has given us a vivid, beautifully told tale of pirates, rebels, passion, mother-daughter love, and the eternal search for freedom. Read Calligraphy of the Witch and enter the mysteries of an untold history." Yxta Maya Murray, author of The Queen Jade, The Conquest, Locas, and What It Takes to Get to Vegas
Review
"Alicia Gaspar de Alba has offered a passionate, dynamic view of 17th century New England when Salem's witch trials accused independent-minded women of crimes they did not commit. Superbly plotted, Calligraphy of the Witch is a journey of the heart in which a mother and a daughter must negotiate unjust cultural conflicts between New England and New Spain. The historical precision in the novel crafts the era's mood, creating a world in which characters real and fictional are equally as genuine. Gaspar de Alba proves again that she is a meticulous historical novelist who understands how to write a complex, suspenseful story that also remarks upon our present." Emma Pérez, historian and author of Gulf Dreams
Review
"de Alba's Puritans are as rich and complex as any characters in recent historical fiction." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a professor and Chair of the César E. Chavez Department for Chicana/Chicano Studies at UCLA. She is the author of Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders, and Sor Juana's Second Dream and lives in Los Angeles, California.