LAUSR

Iberian and Southwestern borderlands’ folkloric contexts in which it has been lodged for generations, placing it in a much broader American colonial context, correctly calling attention to the fact that the legend of the bilocating nun cannot be fully understood or appreciated without taking her writings into account. As Nogar says at the outset, making the distinctiveness of her objectives as clear as possible: “The singular importance of Sor María’s writing in New Spain has not emerged in earlier studies of the Lady in Blue, or of the nun herself. This book seeks to remedy this omission” (5). Nogar’s book consists of two asymmetrical but interconnected sections. The first two chapters, which comprise the shorter section, delve into the sources of the bilocating legend in the colonies and in Spain, as well as into Sor María’s mystical writing. These chapters provide one of the most succinct, yet most thorough, introductions to the life and work of Sor María available in any language. The longer section, which consists of the remaining four chapters, shifts the focus squarely to the New World and to the various ways in which the publication and circulation of Sor María’sMystical City of God popularized the legend of the Lady in Blue among a very wide colonial and postcolonial audience, down to the present day. Writing about someone whose life and writings involve claims considered outrageously impossible by most contemporary scholars is challenging—to say the least— and so is having to interweave historical, theological, and literary analysis of the significance of any such wonder-worker, but Nogar grapples with this challenge successfully. Steering clear of the most troublesome aspect of Sor María’s life—whether or not the truth of her supernatural claims can be proven—and focusing instead on how her Mystical City of God turned these claims into an enduring legend, especially in the New World, Nogar has shed new light on one of the oddest figures in early modern Catholicism as well as on the various ways in which every age constructs its own relevance for religious and cultural myths. Tracing the impact of that legend all the way to the present day in multiple contexts, including that of artistic expression, Nogar skillfully enhances the significance of Sor María, calling attention to it in novel ways, beyond the concerns of historians and theologians. And she does so insightfully, with an impressive balance between scholarly rigor and narrative flair.