Wise Women by Susan Cahill (Editor)

From the Publisher

Spiritual experience is a liberating source of women's identity and their resistance to oppression. Moving from the Native American tale "The Creation of Spider Woman" and the poet-nun of Mexico Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to the contemporary African American thinker Marian Wright Edelman and the Buddhist shaman Joan Halifax, these visionaries see justice and love, loss, aging, and freedom. It inspires them to artistic expression and political action. This deeply moving collection of memoirs, stories, poetry, letters, prayers, and theologies is a source of empowering and uplifting thought for women in any time, at any age.

Publishers Weekly

To assemble a representative sample of the world-wide breadth of women's spirituality from eras and cultures, Cahill has selected some 90 writings encompassing a wide variety of forms (essays, poems, prayers, journal entries, short stories and memoirs) and faiths (Judaism, Christianity-both Protestant and Catholic-Native American and Goddess spirituality, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism). Along with the more conventional touchstones of myth and tradition, the writings contain profound moments of conversion and intense epiphanies of personal revelation. The constellation of authors includes the expected-Sappho, Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila-and the unexpected-Sun Bu-er, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Mirabai and bell hooks. But the volume is especially rich in contemporary selections, with Dorothy Sayers, Hannah Arendt, Iris Murdoch, Denise Levertov, Lucille Clifton, Marge Piercy and Rita Dove among its most notable voices. The result is a very satisfying anthology, illuminating and useful, that can be enjoyed just for the power of its insights into spirituality or can serve as the basis for historical study of women and religion as well as a valuable resource for writers concerned with religious themes. (May)

Library Journal

In many religious traditions, the clamor of male priests and religious functionaries often overwhelms and silences the voices of religious women. Seeking to recover these voices, editor Cahill (Writing Women's Lives, LJ 4/15/94) has put together a beautiful tapestry of religious narratives ranging from medieval Christian mystic Teresa of Avila and Islamic poet Qurrat Al-'Ayn to novelist Tillie Olsen and poet Rita Dove. Cahill's collection of poems, stories, and essays is a rich and powerful testimony to the liberating power of divine love and justice in the lives of women. Highly recommended for all libraries.

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