A Global Cultural Paradigm

William Apel’s Signs of Peace: The Interfaith Letters of Thomas Merton, is more a labor of love than a scholarly tract. It adds much to the ever-growing number of books that continue to bring insight into the life and writings of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), the poet/monk who was one of the best-known Trappists* of the 20th century. In his lifetime and posthumously, Merton left behind some 60-plus works that, in addition to collections of poetry, included the best-selling autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, acknowledged as a classic in its genre. He also penned a substantial body of literary essays covering, among others, Albert Camus, William Blake, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, William Styron, Boris Pasternak, Nabokov, D. H. Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley.