The last book by Beatriz Helena Robledo, María Cano: La Virgen Roja, portrays the life of a woman of libertarian spirit and who was ahead of her time –the 1920s, with its climate of revolution and protest– yet who was also a leader. Robledo is a fiction and essay writer, and lectures at the Universidad Javeriana. With this biography, she leaves children’s and young adult literature to show us a woman and a period full of contradictions, where the first signs of progress were accompanied by political sectarianism and violence. Carlos Sánchez is a lecturer, essayist, literary critic and editor.