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

Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World by Erauso, Catalina De. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780807070727.

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 nuns 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 societys 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.