Who was Juana Ramírez de Asbaje?

In 1648, Juana Ramírez de Asbaje was born to unwed parents in the town of San Miguel Nepantla in the Viceroyalty of New Spain (now Mexico). She showed remarkable intellectual potential early on, learning to read at the age of three, but her gender and her family’s limited finances prevented her from receiving formal education.

Eventually, she had access to a library in Mexico City. She read voraciously, learning Latin in about 20 lessons. She wrote her first dramatic poem when she was eight years old. She was a self-taught scholar and student of scientific thought, philosopher & music.

Word of her extraordinary intelligence spread, and when she was about 16 she went to the court of the viceroy of New Spain. The viceroy arranged a public demonstration in which a group of about 40 professors quizzed her on their fields of knowledge. The depth & breadth of her knowledge astonished onlookers.

Uninterested in marriage and desperate for more books to read, Juana entered a convent in 1669. She continued to produce poems, plays, and philosophical tracts. She also amassed a collection of books & scientific instruments that was one of the largest in the Americas at the time. She died in 1695.

She is remembered as one of the most important writers of the Baroque period of Mexican literature. Her outspoken opinions granted her lifelong names such as "The Tenth Muse" & the "Mexican Phoenix".