Antonieta´s life was my inspiration as well as my teacher. I rewrote the book three times and produced a best-seller, A la Sombra del Angel, at age 75. At the request of my publisher, I wrote a book for Mexican teenagers titled, El Diario de Lucía, much of it based on my own mischievous youth in Mexico City. “Lucía” was later selected by the Secretary of Education to be distributed to all the secondary schools of Mexico. My new book, Forging a Nation, the story of Mexico´s history told as a novel, will appear in English this Fall.
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Kathyrn S. Blair was born in Havana and grew up in Mexico City. She graduated fro
m UCLA with a degree in history and went on to work for the Office of Latin American Affairs during WWII to spread loyalty to the allies across Latin America.
Kathryn returned to Mexico in 1959 and married the only son of Antonieta Rivas Mercado. She started investigating the mysterious suicide of Antonieta and her participation in Mexican politics during the early 20th Century.
Her extensive research led to Kathryn’s first and most popular novel, In the Shadow of the Angel, which follows Antonieta Rivas Mercado through the explosive Mexican Revolution and the tumultuous decades that followed.
In the Shadow of the Angel, has met great success in Mexico, becoming required reading in many educational institutions as part of Mexico’s rich political history. Kathryn is now re-launching In the Shadow of the Angel in English to reach US readers and expose them to the depth and diversity of the Mexican experience.
