The Memoirs of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier (Library of Latin America)

In 1794 Dominican friar Sevando Teresa de Mier proposed to a notable crowd in Mexico City that the image of their beloved Virgin of Guadalupe was brought to Mexico by Apostle Thomas. St Thomas's supposed arrival in the New World, though, would have been well before 1531--the date at which the Virgin was generally believed to have appeared before the Indian Juan Diego. Offended and threatened by this revision of such a significant moment in Mexican religious and social history, church authorities defrocked the friar and sentenced him to 10 years in prison in Spain. So began 25 years of political activism, action, adventure, and life on the lam.

Helen Lane translates a large part of Mier's autobiographical writings, most significantly his adventures in Napoleonic Europe between 1800 and 1805, in The Memoirs of the Fray Servando Teresa de Mier. While Mier's political works have secured him a place in the history of Mexican independence, the jailbreaks, capture, and world travel are the compelling components of this man's life. No simpering, suffering, exiled existentialist here; Mier was a man of strategy. Tales of travels take the reader through the countries of Europe, meeting famous and not-so-famous characters at each fork in the road. His opinions are strong (if not always founded in truth), his mood cheerful, and his nature robust. Mier's interpretations of the world as he saw it are often heavily distorted by his own purposes--but such is life on a wing and a prayer.