ArteFact

As a child, I walked the streets of Rochester barefoot, my shirt torn and my face covered in soot. If I had read them, which I hadn’t, I could have echoed the words of Pip at the beginning of Great Expectations: “Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea.” However, unlike Pip, I didn’t know true poverty. When I paced the streets of Rochester without any shoes on, I was merely acting in the annual Dickens Festival...

Tears are a gift. So say masters of the Christian mystical tradition like Ignatius of Loyola. To be moved by the tragedy of sin, and by God's abundant love and mercy, even to the point of tears, is a boon to the soul...

Earlier this year the literary world was rocked by the news that an old manuscript by Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, had been discovered and was going to be published in July...

Two works written and directed by one of the most profound living film-makers were recently released within two years: The Tree of Life and To the Wonder...