Who was Mary? Lesley Hazelton's highly acclaimed biography draws on history, anthropology, psychology, and ancient texts to re-envision this ionic figure as a real woman. Beginning with a dark-skinned girl barely out of adolescence when she gives birth. Hazelton illuminates the many facets of Mary's existence: peasant villager, wise woman and healer, activist, mother, teacher, and yes, virgin, though in a sense we have long forgotten. She follows her through the worst any mother can experience--the excruciating death of her child--and then looks at how she transforms grief into wisdom, disaster into renewal. The Mary who emerges is neither demystified nor diminished. On the contrary, it is her very humanity that makes this such a powerful and universal story, one in which women everywhere will recognize themselves.
