Ángeles Mastretta (born October 9, 1949, in Puebla) is a post-boom Mexican author, journalist, actress, and film producer.
After a year of working at the Mexican Writers' Center, a collection of Mastretta's poetry entitled La pájara pinta (The Colorful Bird) was published in 1978.
She finally got her chance to work on this novel when an editor offered to sponsor Mastretta on a six-month leave of absence, allowing her to focus solely on writing.
When her infant daughter unexpectedly fell ill, Mastretta sat next to her child in the hospital and began to tell stories of interesting and different women in her family who were important to her in critical moments of her life.
Although journalism is not her main focus like it was when she first started her career as a writer, Mastretta still actively contributes to newspaper, El País, and magazine NEXOS, which was founded by her husband Héctor Aguilar Camín.
The book takes place during, and after, the Mexican Revolution, and focuses on Catalina's difficult life married to a political figure, and philanderer, who commits murders of his enemies.
Catalina's character develops into a force of resistance against machismo and sets the tone for Mastretta's future texts including strong female protagonists.
Her protagonist here, like many other women, accompanies the rebels as they travel on the trains, administers to their wounds as a curandera (important role in small communities, as a healer), and after the war studies in the US to become a medical doctor and returns to the city where she grew up.
Using two characters, Marichu and Pepón, Mastretta points out the oppression that women struggle with when they are obligated to take on traditional and domestic roles, mainly providing for their husbands and family.
Mastretta highlights the freedom that writing provides women, and how feminism can only be fostered in specific environments, out of reach from societal pressures.