Thomas Merton converted to Catholicism in 1938 and entered a Trappist monastery in 1941. After having pursued a literary career for many years, he was convinced that his writing days were over. But then an autobiographical essay bloomed into The Seven Storey Mountain, and he was suddenly a bestselling author. Merton wrestled which path to pursue: "The artist," he wrote, "enters into himself in order to work. But the mystic enters into himself, not in order to work, but to pass through the center of his soul and lose himself in the mystery and secrecy and infinite, transcendent reality of God living and working within him." Eventually, Merton accepted his writing vocation as a valid and adventuresome ministry.
Robert Inchuasti, a professor of English at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, has gathered together a wide-ranging collection of Merton's writings, his correspondence with contemporary artists and thinkers, his literary criticism and social criticism, his commentary on poetry, and his evaluations of his own work. Some of our favorite pieces here deal with writing and spirituality, the challenges of creativity, the delights of poetry, art and ethical lessons, war and the crisis of language, and messages of contemplatives to the world. This is a great addition to the Merton library of collections.
