Thomas Merton

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