Review
At only seven years old, Virginia is taken from her family. She is taken from her home, which is inside a small mud-walled hut that she shares with her parents, her brother and sister, their guinea pigs, and her goat. She is taken from her life outside where she pastures her sheep in the valley, works in the corn and potato fields, and plays beneath the mountain that looms over the village. Virginia, who is an
indígena (an indigenous person), is taken away from everyone, everything, and every place she has known - to become a servant for a Spanish-descended mestizo couple and their child.
The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and María Virginia Farinango is a novel based on the true story of María Virginia's incredible childhood journey. It explores the hard lines that are drawn between class and ethnicity, the brutality of accepting and...
Beyond the Book
In the author's note in The Queen of Water, Laura Resau tells the story of walking into María Virginia Farinango's small shop one snowy day. She had met María Virginia once before at the small community college where Laura taught English as a Second Language (ESL) and María Virginia was taking a class with Laura's colleague. Of this meeting she writes:
Because of the weather, [María Virginia's] store was deserted except for the two of us and her toddler son. It felt cozy there, wrapped in musty wool smells. I ended up...
