Kathryn Hulme (July 6, 1900 – August 25, 1981) was an American author and memoirist most noted for her novel ''
The Nun's Story''. The book is often misunderstood to be semi-autobiographical.
Writing
Her
1956 book ''The Nun's Story'' was a best-selling novel which was made into an
award-winning 1959 movie starring
Audrey Hepburn and
Peter Finch.
Another work, ''The Undiscovered Country: A Spiritual Adventure'' published by Little, Brown & Co. was a description of her years as a student of mystic
G. I. Gurdjieff and her eventual conversion to Catholicism. Hulme studied with Gurdjieff as part of a group of women known as "The Rope," which included eight members in all:
Jane Heap
Jane Heap (November 1, 1883 – June 18, 1964) was an American publisher and a significant figure in the development and promotion of literary modernism. Together with Margaret Anderson, her friend and business partner (who for some years was al ...
,
Elizabeth Gordon,
Solita Solano,
Margaret Caroline Anderson,
Louise Davidson and Alice Rohrer along with Hulme and Gurdjieff.
The Rope
gurdjieff-legacy.org.
She is also the author of ''Wild Place'', a description of her experiences as the UNRRA
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...
Director of the Polish Displaced Persons camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peop ...
at Wildflecken
Wildflecken is a municipality in the Bad Kissingen district, at the border of northwestern Bavaria and southern Hesse. In 2005, its population was 3,285; the postal code is 97772 (US Forces used APO NY 09026 until July 15, 1991, when APO/FPO/DPO ...
, Germany, after World War II. This work won the Atlantic Non-Fiction Award in 1952.
It was at Wildflecken that Hulme met a Belgian nurse and former nun Marie Louise Habets, who became her lifelong companion. ''The Nun's Story'' is a slightly fictionalized biographical account of Habets' life as a nun.
In her 1938 fictionalized autobiography ''We Lived as Children'', Hulme describes a child's perspective of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake.
Bibliography
*''Arab Interlude'', Macrae Smith Company (Philadelphia), 1930
*''Desert Night'', The Macauley Company (New York), 1932
*''We lived as children'', A.A. Knopf (New York, London), 1938 (LCCN: 38027542, ASIN: B000GBZZIU)
*''The Wild Place'', (Atlantic Prize for Nonfiction (1952), Brown Little, 1953, ()
*''The Nun's Story'', Pocket Books, 1958 (ASIN: B000CBFXYA)
*''The Undiscovered Country: A Spiritual Adventure'', Little, Brown & Co. (Boston USA/Toronto CA), 1967; reprinted (Natural Bridge Editions: Lexington MA, 1997) ()
*''Look A Lion In the Eye: On Safari Through Africa'', Little, Brown & Co. First edition (1974) ()
*''Annie's Captain'', Little, Brown and Company (Boston, Toronto), 1961
See also
* Margaret Caroline Anderson
*Monica Baldwin
Monica Baldwin (22 February 1893 – 17 November 1975) was a British writer and canoness regular for 28 years. After leaving her enclosed Order, she wrote of her experiences in a series of books which received a widespread audience at the time, ...
* G. I. Gurdjieff
* Marie Louise Habets
*Jane Heap
Jane Heap (November 1, 1883 – June 18, 1964) was an American publisher and a significant figure in the development and promotion of literary modernism. Together with Margaret Anderson, her friend and business partner (who for some years was al ...
* Solita Solano
References
External links
Kathryn Hulme Papers
Digital collection at th
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale UniversityKathryn Hulme Papers
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
short radio segment from ''We Lived as Children
In Modern English, ''we'' is a plural, first-person pronoun.
Morphology
In Standard Modern English, ''we'' has six distinct shapes for five word forms:
* ''we'': the nominative (subjective) form
* ''us'' and ': the accusative (objective; ...
'' at California Legacy Project
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hulme, Kathryn
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American memoirists
1900 births
1981 deaths
American women novelists
American LGBT writers
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Writers from San Francisco
American women memoirists
20th-century American women writers
Writers from Hawaii
20th-century LGBT people
Students of George Gurdjieff