A Daughter's Place by Martha Bátiz reveals the stories of the Cervantes women

Moving from an upscale Madrid household to Valladolid’s chaotic streets and back to the capital, this debut illustrates Golden Age Spain from the viewpoints of the women in Miguel de Cervantes’s family – whose lives were as eventful as any work of fiction. With a scholarly background in her subject, Mexican-Canadian writer Bátiz has the knowledge and storytelling prowess to make her novel vibrant.

The title character is Isabel, who speaks of her shock upon learning, at 15, that her birth father is the celebrated writer and war hero. After her aunt Magdalena collects her from her late mother’s tavern to reside with the Cervantes family, Isabel finds it hard to adjust. She must share a bed with her resentful cousin Constanza and pretend to outsiders that she’s their maid while despairing of her new status as a “bastarda… a daughter of sin.”

Living separately in Esquivias, Miguel’s devoted wife Catalina, who begins her sections with fervent prayers, wants nothing more than to bear his child, not realizing he already has one.

House of Anansi (2025)

The era’s Catholic morality permeates the setting, which doesn’t prevent the strong-minded Cervantes women from exercising their will. Financial security is a critical motivator, too. They work as seamstresses to support themselves after having gathered a fortune to ransom Miguel from captivity in Algiers and unstintingly obey his wishes despite his frequent absences. The reason why eventually comes to dramatic light.

As Miguel conceptualizes and publishes Don Quixote, the story winds through their house relocations, the women’s love affairs past and present, and Isabel’s ongoing quest to shed the stain of illegitimacy. The shifts in perspective are mostly smooth, with a couple of instances where scene climaxes vexingly happen off-page. Bátiz movingly develops the family’s relationships across two decades, making this more than the exceptional “women behind a famous man” novel that it is.

A Daughter's Place was published by House of Anansi in Canada and the US in May, and I reviewed it from an Edelweiss copy for the Historical Novel Society.  This is the author's debut novel; she has also published short story collections and an award-winning novella, Boca de lobo / Damiana's Reprieve. The painting on the cover is Two Women at a Window by 17th-century Spanish artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo.