The Mysterious Sofía

“With a sensitive, creative, and highly readable style, Andes narrates the life of Sofía del Valle, a complex, dynamic, and fascinating Mexican Catholic activist and lay leader. Yet Andes has done more than write a biography: he has also vividly portrayed the transnational world in which Sofía lived—a world in which lay activists and clergy circulated between Mexico, Europe, the Vatican, and the United States, exchanging ideas and plans, founding vibrant new organizations and publications, and working to engage Catholics in new ways with their Church. . . . Andes has brilliantly narrated an essentially Mexican story, one that explains and investigates the long and often contentious interplay between Church, state, and society in twentieth-century Mexico.”