ABOUT THE BOOK

The Love You Promised Me is the 6th recipient of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, awarded annually at the Guadalajara International Book Fair for a work of fiction by a woman writer in the Spanish language.

Marcela, the heroine of the novel, is a modern, professional woman in her forties sifting through her disappointment after a brief but intense, extra-marital affair. As the novel opens, Marcela is in the town of San Lázaro, the home town of her forbears, not only to pick up the pieces of her life, but also to discover the secret past of her parents. Set in Mexico in 1994, Mexico's last elections, the Mayan insurrection in Chiapas, and the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio serve not only as backdrop, but they also parallel the emotional vicissitudes in Marcela's own life.

Born in Mexico City in 1946, Silvia Molina is the author of five other novels, among them La Manana debe Seguir Gris (Gray Skies Tomorrow), winner of the 1977 Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, La Familia Vino del Norte (The Family Came From the North) and Imagen de Héctor (Image of Hector). She received the Mexican Writers Center Award in 1980, and participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1990.

David Unger was born in 1950 in Guatemala City. He is the U.S. coordinator of the Guadalajara International Book Fair and the Director of City College's Publishing Certificate Program. Among his many translations are Popol Vuh, version by Victor Montejo (Groundwood), Elena Garro's First Love and Look for My Obituary (Curbstone) and Bárbara Jacobs's The Dead Leaves (Curbstone).