Merton, Thomas (1915-1968)

American Trappist monk, religious writer, and poet. Born to American parents in Prades, France, Merton also lived in England, where he studied at the University of Cambridge, and in the United States. He taught English at Columbia University after earning two degrees there and worked at a Roman Catholic center in the Harlem area of New York City. In 1941, two years after his conversion to Roman Catholicism, he entered the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemane in Kentucky. He was ordained a priest in 1949, taking the name Father Louis. Merton was attuned to such contemporary phenomena as the peace movement, the civil rights movement, and liturgical revival. He died as a result of an accident while attending a Christian-Buddhist conference in Bangkok. Merton's best known work is his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948). Other works include The Waters of Siloe (1949) and The Sign of Jonas (1953), two volumes on Trappist life; Seeds of Contemplation (1949) and The Silent Life (1957), volumes of meditations; and Figures for an Apocalypse (1947), The Tears of the Blind Lions (1949), and The Strange Islands (1957), books of verse.