Death Comes for the Archbishop

Death Comes for the Archbishop
ISBN: 9781844083725
Publication Date: 1 October 2006

Willa Cather's best known novel; a narrative that recounts a life lived simply in the silence of the southwestern desert.

In 1851 Bishop Latour and his friend Father Valliant are despatched to New Mexico to reawaken its slumbering Catholicism. Moving along the endless prairies, Latour spreads his faith the only way he knows - gently, although he must contend with the unforgiving landscape, derelict and sometimes openly rebellious priests, and his own loneliness. Over nearly forty years, they leave converts and enemies, crosses and occasionally ecstasy in their wake. But it takes a death for them to make their mark on the landscape forever ...

'Quite simply a masterpiece ... I am completely bowled over by it ... This will be a book which I go on rereading' A. N. Wilson, TELEGRAPH

A powerful piece of writing, rich with the essence of a poor, yet beautiful country and a simple yet dignified people' Sunday Times

'A tremendous, ranging story, economical and distilled as poetry ... A lovely book' Jane Gardam

Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia where for generations her ancestors farmed land. She became a teacher and journalist and is one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century.