Wild Country Out in the Garden

Madre Maria de San Jose (1656 - 1719)—mystic, chronicler, and co-founder of an Augustinian convent—inscribed her life story within the model of spiritual autobiography set by St. Augustine and Teresa of Avila, but at the same time included her individual story as a seventeenth-century woman of the landowning classes in New Spain. The resulting manuscript records in intimate detail her family life, convent surroundings, and social milieu; it introduces us to a combative and engaging person and gives us a rare and vivid glimpse of a complex society.