Laura Esquivel was born in Mexico City in 1950 and is the author of the novel Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), which has been translated in to 35 languages and was on the New York Times Bestseller List for a year. She is also the author of La ley del amor, a groundbreaking multimedia novel that included a CD and a comic. Esquivel is also the author of Íntimas suculencias, Tratado filosófico de cocina; El libro de las Emociones; Tan veloz como el deseo; Estrellita marinera (a book for children); and Malinche.
Esquivel has won several prizes as a screenplay writer and as a novelist. In 1994 she was the first non-US writer to be a recipient of the ABBY (American Booksellers Book of the Year).