Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World - Hardcover

Erauso, Catalina De

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807070726 ISBN 13: 9780807070727

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 1996

Synopsis

Born in 1585, Catalina de Erauso led one of the most wildly fantastic lives of any woman in history. Refusing to be regimented into the quiet habits of a nun's life, she escaped from a Basque convent at age fourteen dressed as a man, and continuing her deception, ventured to Peru and Chile as a soldier in the Spanish army. After mistakenly killing her own brother in a duel, she roamed the Andean highlands, becoming a gambler and a killer, and always just evading the grasp of the law. Distinguished for her fighting skills and cursed with a quick temper, Catalina de Erauso spent much of her life balancing precariously between valor and villainy.
One of the earliest known autobiographies by a woman, Lieutenant Nun offers a portrait of a bold young girl who defied her society's gender roles, yet remained committed to its service as a participant in the conquest of the Americas. She is an adored folkloric hero of the Spanish-speaking world, and this delightful translation introduces a new audience to the audacious escapades of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun.

About this title

Review

A rollicking, swashbuckling tale. -Los Angeles Times

"The frontier nun's rascally tale [is] a fascinating puzzle to decipher." -Angeline Goreau, The New York Times Book Review

"A mesmerizing adventure!" -Tama Janowitz

"[Catalina de Erauso] dared to steal the quest narrative from the roving men of her time and, miraculously, survived to tell the tale. An essential work for recovering the roots of women's autobiography and women's remaking of identity through encounters with otherness, not only in society but in the self." -Ruth Behar, author of The Vulnerable Observer

"The Steptos' translation, without betraying the original, turns this memoir into compelling literature in English." -Roberto González Echevarría, Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literatures, Yale University

About the Author

Catalina de Erauso was born in Spain in either 1585 or 1592, according to disputed records, and died in 1650. Raised and educated in a convent, de Erauso refused to conform to the strict nature of the environment and, disguising herself in men's clothing, escaped in 1600. As a fugitive, she then traveled to various countries and joined the Chilean military, climbing the ranks. Her story is told in Lieutenant Nun: Memoirs of a Basque Transvestite, which was originally wrote or dictated, and eventually published, in Paris in 1829.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807070726
• ISBN 13: 9780807070727
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80