A Woman of Genius

This volume is the first English-language publication of a major declaration of women's intellectual freedom, written in 1691 by a Mexican nun. Published in Spain in 1701 after her death, Sor Juana's La Repruesta a Sor Filotea has become one of the classic works in Spanish-American literature. Well-known as a poet during her lifetime, the nun's bold confrontation with high church authority, followed shortly by her death during an epidemic while tending to her sister nuns, has made her one of the folklore heroines of Latin America. The work itself is 20,000 words long, filled with extraordinary literary, historical and religious references and marked by rare insights into human foibles, malice, and envy. A Woman of Genius is a challenge to the reader's own intellect, not for light bedtime reading.