'Reflections on a Life' offers short excursions into autobiography, informal evocations of particular incidents, times and places, and sharply-etched memories of individual people who have left an imprint on the author s life. These memories and reflections range widely over two countries and continents, and offer insights into a variety of times and cultures. From a free-ranging rural childhood on the Atlantic coast of Mayo about the time of Hitler's war, to a freelance, mid-life relocation in Valparaiso on the coast of Chile during General Pinochet s dictatorship in the 1980s crucially linked by the three decades she spent as a Sister of Mercy in various Dublin schools and colleges Teresita Durkan s is a life that provides plenty of scope for observation and reflection. The book as a whole throws out a challenge to be more thoughtful about the kind of life we are helping to shape, both inside ourselves and around us. We are responsible for the worlds we create for one another.