Muriel Spark (1918-2006)

Today marks the death of convert and novelist Muriel Spark, best known for her 1961 novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. In 1954, she decided to join the Roman Catholic Church, which she considered crucial in her development toward becoming a novelist. Penelope Fitzgerald, a contemporary of Spark and a fellow novelist, remarked how Spark “had pointed out that it wasn’t until she became a Roman Catholic… that she was able to see human existence as a whole, as a novelist needs to do.” In an interview with John Tusa on BBC Radio 4, she said of her conversion and its effect on her writing: “I was just a little worried, tentative. Would it be right, would it not be right? Can I write a novel about that — would it be foolish, wouldn’t it be? And somehow with my religion — whether one has anything to do with the other, I don’t know — but it does seem so, that I just gained confidence…” Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh supported her in her decision. Spark was once quoted as saying: “If you’re going to be a Christian, you might as well become a Catholic.”
(Adapted from Wikipedia)