ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: Why did many Jews in the Aragon region of Spain convert to Christianity voluntarily, even before the Inquisition was a threat?
Edith Scott Saavedra earned a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Harvard University, where she studied Spanish literature with Professor Juan Marichal. While an undergraduate at Harvard, she also studied political philosophy, history and social theory. Ms. Scott also earned a Juris Doctor cum laude from the Harvard Law School. She has had a distinguished career as an international lawyer, business consultant and author. She is the co-author of several leading non-fiction works on the competitiveness of industries, regions and nations.
Ms. Scott has recently switched gears and published The Lamps of Albarracín, a historical novel set in the region of Aragon, in the northeast of Spain, at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. The author herself describes this work as being in the tradition of the Portuguese saudade—a story of nostalgic longing for a past that witnessed inter-faith friendships as well as enmity, in a society in which members of the three religions—Christian, Jewish and Muslim—lived in the same locality and interacted with each other in their daily lives. The book has been published simultaneously in English and Spanish.
