THOMAS MERTON was a prolific poet, religious writer, and essayist whose diversity of work has rendered a precise definition of his life and an estimation of the significance of his career difficult. Merton was a Trappist, a member of a Roman Catholic brotherhood known for its austere lifestyle and vow of silence in which all conversation is forbidden.
He is the co-author, with Ernesto Cardenal Martinez, of:
From the Monastery to the World: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal