Saint Joan; by George Bernard Shaw.

An inspired young woman, a young country girl without education, saved France - from foreign invasion as much as from destruction and chaos - and the then powers had her not only imprisoned and tortured, but burnt alive in public, for fear they will lose their power, their straglehold over people.

Few intellectuals have either bothered - or really have had the courage - to set matters straight, down even on paper, much less pay the homage due to the young woman who seems to have had more courage than the generations of men since then.

Shaw is amongst those very few men who did not lack the courage to write about Joan of Arc.

Saint she was, and a true heroine, whether any human authorities - with any institutional power and claims to any other source of authority - say so or otherwise.

One wonders if anyone would have the courage to compare the two (spiritually) tall figures, who were executed by the same empire, for very similar reasons - being heroic about liberating their own people, and with claims of direct connection of their souls to higher realms - one was crucified two millennia ago in west Asia, the other burnt alive a few centuries ago in France.

Divine after all is beyond time and space and geography, empires and institutions, and most certainly beyond gender.