Once in the West

Praise for author Christian Wiman: "[Wiman's] poetry and his scholarship have a purifying urgency that is rare in this world. This puts him at the very source of theology, and enables him to say new things in timeless language, so that the reader's surprise and assent are one and the same." --Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead "Like the classic mystics, [Wiman] often resorts to a language of paradox to convey things that ordinary language can't ... Wiman speaks carefully but powerfully . . . The best that can come from contemplation of mortality, perhaps, is a kind of wisdom that can give others strength--not by answering questions, like those best-sellers which claim to tell you what happens after you see the white light, but by asking questions honestly . . . My Bright Abyss is a book that will give light and strength, even to those who find themselves unable to follow its difficult path." --Adam Kirsch , The New Yorker