Following in the footsteps of my colleagues, Lorraine Murray and Kevin O’Brien, I’d also like to post something related to Flannery O’Connor. In fact, I’d like to hold her responsible for my absence from this site over the past two weeks or so. Actually, that’s a little unfair; she has only kept me busy for a chunk of this week. I have Solzhenitsyn to blame for keeping me away from the site over the previous week. Let me explain …

I’ve been asked to contribute a long essay for a Russian literary magazine, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (The New Literary Observer), for a future special issue on Alexander Solzhenitsyn. My article, entitled “Kindred Spirits: Solzhenitsyn’s Western Literary Confreres”, examines Solzhenitsyn’s religious, philosophical and political affinity with a host of western writers, such as Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis and Eliot.

I’ve also been asked to write a preface for a new book on Flannery O’Connor by my friend, Lorraine Murray, who will need no introduction to visitors to this site. I finished this yesterday and am now working on a review of David Rooney’s new literary biography of Ronald Knox, The Wine of Certitude, for the Catholic Historical Review. I offer this information by way of an excuse, and also an apology, for my prolonged absence from the blog.

I need to return to the Knox review but hope to send another blog in the next few days on various issues that have been niggling me, including something on the BBC. I’ll also supply a preview of the July/August issue of StAR, which is packed full of excellent articles on the theme of “Literary Converts”, a subject particularly close to my heart! If you haven’t yet subscribed to StAR, please do so!