Who is Isabela?

The main character in my upcoming novel, Isabela’s Way,  (available for pre-order now) came to me on a hero’s journey bicycle trip in 2011. 

My imagined Isabela

I was on the third day of a bicycle trip from Lisbon, Portugal to the Alhambra in Spain and had just huffed and puffed up a steep hill to a Celtic standing stone burial site (Anta do Tapadao).  The sun fell in exactly the correct alignment to produce a wonderous moment  On the glide down the hill on the way to another climb and the enchanting town of Marvao, a fourteen-year-old embroideress came to me with her story of escape through a journey from Portugal to Spain, then France and finally to Germany. I told the girl to get in line… I was writing a 20^th century novel based on my family in Germany, and a contemporary women’s fiction novel waited in the wings.

My girl did wait, and I traveled three times to Spain, Portugal, France and Germany. In all those research journeys, I repeatedly marveled at the blending of  Christian, Jewish, and Muslim influences in the art, architecture, music and foods I experienced in Portugal and Spain. So I wrote Isabela’s refugee story and transformation in the face of religious persecution, but as is so often true, but not well enough told, she had the assistance of good local people— an underground network— allies  who were Jews, righteous Christians, and  friends of her family.

Isabela is an embroiderer.  She is young but talented. There is a long history of women using their needle arts to communicate about their worlds… emotional, practical, political and cultural. I was entranced with the story of Dona Gracia Nasi, a 16^th century Portuguese businesswoman, philanthropist and Conversa, who was  instrumental in financing and organizing transportation and resettlement for conversos fleeing Portugal.

There is no evidence that Dona Gracia Nasi (also known as Beatriz de Luna) was personally involved in embroidery. However, her family wealth came in large part from their textile business. We know that Sephardic Jews played a significant role in textile production, including embroidery, particularly with the introduction of gold thread production from North Africa to Europe, a significant part of Portuguese trade.

During the early modern period, women, including Jewish women, were heavily involved in various aspects of textile production, including spinning, weaving, and embroidery. In fact, abstaining from these activities could arouse suspicion among conversos during the Inquisition.

While Dona Gracia Nasi herself may not have been an embroiderer, her involvement in the textile trade and her position as a leader within the Sephardic Jewish community mean that the craft of embroidery was undoubtedly present in the context of her life and her era. The gift of fiction is that I got to use her history as a template for events a century later and as a context for my character, Isabela.