Seventy years ago, in September 1948, the English author Patrick Leigh Fermor decamped from the nightspots of Paris to the Benedictine monastery of Saint Wandrille de Fontanelle near Rouen. His purpose was to work on a draft of what would become The Traveller's Tree, an account of his voyages in the Caribbean. A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, the books recounting part of an epic pre-war walk across Europe as an eighteen-year-old that would secure Leigh Fermor’s lasting fame, were still decades away.
9:00 AM
The long read: Patrick Leigh Fermor and the monks of the west
The author could never shake off the allure of religion
Michael Duggan
11 min read
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