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'[Mariana's] letters, translated here by Vaz, are simple, strong arguments for the purity of love, and they seem to penetrate the human heart with startling directness... Mariana is most successful in its lyrical descriptions of ordinary lives transfigured, in its detailing of everyday routines and beliefs, and in its account of spiritual and emotional struggles... Vaz's evocation of life in seventeenth-century Portugal glows with colour.' E V Ormond, TLS