La Mujer Que Quiso Ser Amada por Dios

The book, developed on and off for almost forty years, offers a radical revision of life and work of the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695). Based on the latest discoveries in most diverse archives (from Lima to Tulane and Mexico), it carefully sifts through all the information that circulates among her readers to conclude that practically all that information “is factually erroneous, freely invented or slanted,” spun to fit the imaginary life story each of the contending lines of criticism strives to create.

As a consequence, her work has been read partially, sometimes contradictorily and always out of context; her long and intense internal debate that has come to head in her last years has been transmuted into fanciful punishments imposed on her from outside. Evidence contradictory to fantasy has been carefully avoided. Baseless conjectures, repeated and improved on by further conjectures have solidified as “accepted reality.” The book is a devastating critique of dilettantish “sorjuanismo,” from less than “critical” editions to impressive yet equivocal monuments (Paz) and all between. It is also fun to read and, being a text about the Baroque, conceals a challenge for the intelligent reader.