Book event – Catherine Coldstream, Cloistered

An exploration of the limits of trust, Cloistered shows us how far youthful idealism can take us along the road of self-surrender, and how much harm is done when hierarchical flaws go unacknowledged. Catherine’s honest account of her time in the monastery – and flight from it – is both a love song to a lost community and an exploration of what is most compelling, yet most potentially destructive when closed human groups become laws unto themselves.

Catherine Coldstream was born into a bohemian family in London, and grew up loving books, words, and music. She spent her teens writing over-ambitious experimental music that rarely got performed. After the shock of her father’s death, she converted to Roman Catholicism in her 20s, and went on to spend twelve years in a Carmelite monastery where she lived the life of a dedicated contemplative nun. Since leaving her community she has studied at the Universities of Oxford, East Anglia, and London, gained a PhD, and taught theology and philosophy in schools. The effects of her years as a nun have never left her and continue to inspire and inform her writing.

Order Cloistered by Catherine Coldstream