In pre-Columbian Mexico, a young girl is sold into slavery by a wicked stepfather. As a slave, she learns Mayan in addition to her native tongue Nahuatl. She is one of 20 slaves given to Hernan Cortes by the natives of Tabasco in 1519. Finding that she can speak the language of the Aztecs, Cortes makes her his interpreter and keeps her always at his side. Together, they form a team that defeats the tyrant Moctezuma the Younger, rebuilds the devastated Aztec capital as Mexico City, and tells the story of Jesus as redeemer to people of Latin America who are weary of the human sacrifices to the insatiable Sun God. Cortes establishes trade, introducing chocolate, corn, tomatoes, and cotton to Europe. He brings horses, sheep, pigs, steel knives, and citrus trees to Mexico from Europe. Thus the two continents enrich each other even as they try to destroy each other. Marina helps to spread Christianity throughout her homeland, and eventually goes to Spain where she becomes a voice for the vanquished people whose history she wants to preserve for future generations.
Unfortunately, she becomes demonized as a traitress during the Mexican Revolution, and derogatory legends grow around her name mispronounced as "La Malinche." This book, thoroughly researched over 5 years, tells the story as she might have told it herself, sympathetically portraying the cultures of native peoples as well as the complex characters of Hernan Cortes and Moctezuma II.