A LIGHT SO LOVELY
The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time has captured the imagination of millions—from literary sensation to timeless classic and now a major motion picture starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Storm Reid, and Mindy Kaling. A Light So Lovely tells the story of the woman at the center of it all—her imagination, her faith, her pattern of defying categories, and what readers today can learn from her legacy.
Bestselling and beloved author Madeleine L’Engle, Newbery winner for A Wrinkle in Time, was known the world round for her imaginative spirit and stories. She was also known to spark controversy—too Christian for some, too unorthodox for others. Somewhere in the middle was a complex woman whose embrace of paradox has much to say to a new generation of readers today.
A Light So Lovely paints a vivid portrait of this enigmatic icon’s spiritual legacy, starting with her inner world and expanding into fresh reflections on her writing for readers today. Listen in on intimate interviews with L’Engle’s literary contemporaries such as Philip Yancey and Luci Shaw, L’Engle’s granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis, and influential fans such as Makoto Fujimura, Nikki Grimes, and Sarah Bessey, as they reveal new layers to the woman behind the stories we know and love. A vibrant, imaginative read, this book pulls back the curtain to illuminate L’Engle’s creative journey, her persevering faith, and the inspiring, often unexpected ways these two forces converged.
For anyone earnestly searching the space between sacred and secular, miracle and science, faith and art, come and find a kindred spirit and trusted guide in Madeleine—the Mrs Whatsit to our Meg Murry—as she sparks our imagination anew. Available in paperback, eBook, and audio formats.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
Philip Yancey
author, Vanishing Grace: What Ever Happened to the Good News?
"Madeleine was a true bridge builder; and if ever we’ve needed some, now is the time."
Catherine Hand
film producer, A Wrinkle in Time
“Many thanks to Sarah for capturing the beauty and complexity of Madeleine L’Engle who influenced millions of readers around the world to always light candles in the darkness.”
Nikki Grimes
New York Times YA and children’s bestselling author
“Science and religion. Faith and fiction. The gift of both/and is the Madeleine L’Engle legacy I, and many a Christian creative, has benefitted from most, and Sarah Arthur’s A Light So Lovely takes a deep dive into the fullest meaning of L’Engle’s beautifully complex perspective, displayed in all of her work, but most famously in A Wrinkle in Time.”
Sarah Bessey
author, Out of Sorts and Jesus Feminist
"I’ve waited a long time for a book about Madeleine L’Engle’s spiritual legacy and A Light So Lovely was entirely worth the wait."
Sara Zarr
YA author
“A compelling portrait of an author whose commitment to challenging our labels and categories, to bridging the imagined divide between sacred and secular, is as relevant today as ever.”
Luci Shaw
author, Thumbprint in the Clay
“What fun, and what a delight it is to gain these fresh and careful insights into the life of Madeleine L’Engle, literary icon and dear friend whose imagination and storytelling has become the stuff of legend!”
Jeffrey Overstreet
author, Auralia’s Colors and Through a Screen Darkly
"This book has a secret. It’s a magic word—one so small you might overlook it. The word? And. It’s everywhere in this book, marking how Madeleine L’Engle reconciled what we have divided. Like L’Engle’s vision, Arthur’s book is for believers and unbelievers. Readers and writers. Fans of science fiction and romance. People of faith and people of science—and those who love both of those languages."
Tara Isabella Burton
author, speaker
“An eminently readable, deeply lyrical, and thoroughly necessary examination of a literary luminary in the context of her faith. Arthur helps illuminate not just L’Engle’s own writings but the wider promise of the Anglican tradition.”
Brian Bantum
Associate Professor of Theology, Seattle Pacific University
“In A Light So Lovely, Sarah Arthur gives us the heart of Madeline L’Engle’s legacy, that the Christian life (like Christ’s life) is subversive and beautiful, and that hope is sometimes deceptively ordinary. We need this reminder now more than ever.”
MEET THE AUTHOR
Sarah Arthur is the author of over twelve books ranging from bestselling devotionals to critical engagement with literature.
A graduate of Wheaton College and Duke University Divinity School, she's a founding board member of the annual C.S. Lewis Festival and served as writer-in-residence for the Frederick Buechner Writers Workshop at Princeton Theological Seminary. She's also the preliminary fiction judge for the Christianity Today Book Awards, through which she grades on a L’Engle-inspired curve. She can't wait till her two little boys are old enough to be read aloud A Wrinkle in Time.
Learn more at www.SarahArthur.info.
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