María-Milagros Rivera Garretas, historian, philologist, translator, essayist, mother and grandmother has written this book to celebrate the 500 year anniversary of the birth of Teresa of Ávila and to give thanks for all that she has gained from reading her works, starting with a children’s edition of Book of Her Life that was in her childhood home.
Teresa de Jesús (1515-1582) fue contemporánea de Juana I, Carlos V y Felipe II, vivió tiempos revolucionarios y también difíciles. Los tiempos del primer capitalismo, la conquista y colonización de América, la reforma protestante, la contrarreforma católica, el absolutismo político, y la caza de brujas. Fue más radical que su época porque supo reinventar la política, poniendo en su centro no el poder de las armas sino la espiritualidad personal soberana de cada ser humano. Los libros que escribió han resistido al tiempo y nos siguen asombrando 500 años después.
Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) was contemporary of Joan I, Charles V and Phillip II, she lived in revolutionary and difficult times. Times of first capitalism, conquest and colonization of America, Protestant Reform, Catholic Counter-Reformation, political absolutism, and witch hunts. She was more radical than her times because she was able to reinvent politics by putting in its center not power of arms but the personal sovereign spirituality of each human being. The books she wrote have outlasted time and do not cease to amaze us 500 hundred years later.