Thomas Merton - Wikipedia

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) was an American author, born in Prades[?], France. Merton wrote more than 50 books, 2000 poems, and a countless number of essays, reviews, and lectures that have been recorded and published.

Merton went to private school in England and then to Cambridge University. Both of his parents died by the time he was a young teen, which led Merton to move to the United States to live with his grandparents. He finished his education at Columbia University in New York City.

Merton converted to Christianity and Catholicism in his early twenties, heavily influenced by the writings of William Blake. He spent some time working at the Friendship House under the mentorship of Catherine Doherty. While at this job, Merton felt led to enter the priesthood. In December 1941, Merton resigned from his teaching job at Bonaventure College[?], in Olean, New York[?], and went to the Abbey of Gethsemani[?], near Bardstown, Kentucky, where he became a Trappist[?] monk.

Merton died suddenly, electrocuted by a malfunctioning fan, while he was attending his first international monastic conference near Bangkok, Thailand, in 1968. He is buried in the cemetery at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Among the regular visitors to his gravesite are the Dalai Lama, with whom he was personally acquainted.

Selected Bibliography

A Man in the Divided Sea, 1946
The Seven Story Mountain, 1948
Waters of Siloe, 1949
Seeds of Contemplation, 1949
Ascent to Truth, 1951
Bread in the Wilderness, 1953
The Last of the Fathers, 1954
The Living Bread, 1956
The Silent Life, 1957
Thoughts in Solitude, 1958
The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton, 1959
Disputed Questions, 1960
The New Man, 1961
New Seeds of Contemplation, 1962
Emblems of a Season of Fury, 1963
Life and Holiness, 1963
Seeds of Destruction, 1965
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 1966
Raids on the Unspeakable, 1966
Mystics and Zen Masters, 1967
Faith and Violence, 1968
My Argument with the Gestapo, 1969
No Man is an Island, 1978