Erika Rummel

An enchanting telling of the complex life of Luisa, who forges a new life after freedom from slavery in colonial Mexico. Luisa Abrego, a slave in Seville, is set free upon her master’s death and marries a white man. After boarding Luisa’s illegitimate child with the nuns of St. Clare, the couple sets out for Mexico. There Luisa is accused of bigamy and tried in the court of the Inquisition. This is, however, not Luisa’s own story: the narratives here are those of historical figures who encountered her, from nuns to silver miners to Inquisitors. These are European voices, the recorded voices of history, in whose accounts a fractured portrait of a fascinating and complex woman emerges, like glimpses of a figure moving past a mirror. Based on 16th century trial records of the real Luisa, this novel is not just one woman’s life in fragments, but a carefully researched imagining, told in vivid, distinct voices, of how the Inquisition affected the Spanish colonies.

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