Francisca Josefa de la Concepción

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Castillo and the second or maternal family name is Guevara.

Mother Francisca Josefa de la Concepción OSC
An allegorical portrait of Sister Josefa del Castillo, c. 1813
Born	Francisca Josefa de Castillo y Guevara (1671-10-06)6 October 1671 Tunja, New Kingdom of Granada, Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Empire
Died	1742 Tunja, Viceroyalty of New Granada, Spanish Empire
Occupation	Nun
Language	Spanish
Period	1694—1742
Subject	Christian mysticism
Notable works	Afectos espirituales
Literature portal

Francisca Josefa de la Concepción OSC (1671–1742) was a Criolla nun and mystic in the region of New Kingdom of Granada which later became Colombia. The first recorded woman writer of Colombia, her devotional and autobiographical writings were published posthumously.

Her work has been studied by Dario Achury Valenzuela, Constanza Toquica, Ángela Inés Robledo, Antonio Gómez Restrepo, Elisa Mújica, José María Vergara y Vergara, and Daniel Alejandro Montes, among others, who recognize her as one of the most prominent writers of Colombian colonial literature.

Personal life

Francisca Josefa de Castillo y Guevara was born into a wealthy family on October 6, 1671 in Tunja, which at the time was part of the New Kingdom of Granada. Her father, Francisco Ventura de CastiIlo y Toledo, an hidalgo colonist originally from Illescas in Spain, was initially appointed General lieutenant of the city and then Mayor. Her mother, María Guevara Niño y Rojas, was a native criolla of Tunja of Basque descent. Francisca Josefa had three siblings whose names were Catalina and Pedro Antonio Diego. Her other sister's name remains unknown.

As a young woman she became a Poor Clare nun at the Royal Monastery of St. Clare, located in her town, where she spent the rest of her life within its walls. She was later appointed abbess of the community three times.

Selected works

• Castillo, Francisca Josefa de la Concepción (1817). Castillo y Alarcon, Antonio María de (ed.). Vida de la V M Francisca Josefa de la Concepción... (autobiography) (in Spanish). Philadelphia: T H Palmer. OCLC 5356222.
• — (1843). Gaitán, Benito (ed.). Sentimientos espirituales de la venerable Madre Francisca Josefa de la Concepción (compilation) (in Spanish). Bogotá: Imprenta de Bruno Espinosa de los Monteros. OCLC 8811302.
• — (1968). Achury Valenzuela, Darío (ed.). Obras completas de la Madre Francisca Josefa de la Concepción (compilation) (in Spanish). Bogotá: Colombia, Bank of the Republic of. OCLC 1199914.

See also

• María Josefa Acevedo Sánchez
• Juan de Castellanos Sánchez

Further reading

• Morales Borrero, María Teresa (1968). La Madre Castillo: Su Espiritalidad y Su Estilo [Mother Castillo: Her Spirituality and Style] (literary review) (in Spanish). Bogotá: Caro and Cuervo Institute. OCLC 1906573.
• Jarvis, Kathleen Jeanette (1985). Madre Casillo's Afectos Espirituales: Translation and Commentary (thesis). Austin: University of Texas. OCLC 13055731.
• Lavrin, Asunción (1983). "Document 10: The Writings of a Mystic (Mother Francisca Josefa de Castillo's Mystical Writings)". In Ruether, Rosemary Radford; Keller, Rosemary Skinner (eds.). Women and Religion in America (anthology). Vol. 2. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 9780060668327. OCLC 21999581.