![]() ![]() ![]() As a mystic her writings influenced generations of other authors, both Catholic and non-Catholic through the centuries, even as it invited the scrutiny of the Inquisition. Her written works ranged from the autobiographical Vida (Life), ostensibly penned at the request of her confessor, as well as the mystical Castillo interior o las moradas (Interior castle or the mansions) a treatise on prayer composed for her nuns called Camino de perfección (Way of perfection) an account of the convents she established, Fundaciones (Foundations) and numerous Cartas (Letters). In her forties she began the reform of the Carmelite order for both men and women as part of what came to be known as the Counter-Reformation. ![]() The child of a converso (converted Jewish) father and an “old Christian” mother, her very family name had been adjusted to obscure the paternal background. She also represented in her family background and her life’s work the currents roiling the Spain of her time and place. Teresa of Avila (b. 1515–d. 1582), also known as Santa Teresa de Jesús, is arguably the foremost woman writer of 16th-century Spain. ![]()
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