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Joseph Pearce

Joseph Pearce (born c.1961) is an English-born writer, as of 2004 Writer in Residence and Professor of Literature at Ave Maria College in Michigan, where he has had a position since 2001. He is known for a number of literary biographies. He became a Roman Catholic convert in 1989, and writes from a Catholic perspective. He does not have a university degree. He is co-editor of The Saint Austin Review.

Extremist Youth

He was brought up in Dagenham, England. At age 15 he joined the National Front (NF), a far-right racist political party. He was closely involved in NF organisational activities, initially in its youth section, where he edited the paper Bulldog, and was also present at NF anti-Catholic violence in Derry/Londonderry. As a young adult he spoke at violent NF rallies, and edited another NF publication Nationalism Today. In 1982 he was jailed for incitement, for six months; and again, for a year, four years later, being released in 1986. He left the National Front in 1987.

He now repudiates these views saying that his racism stemmed from hatred, and that his conversion to Christianity meant that he had to love other humans.

He attributes his subsequent religious conversion, from a culturally-Protestant agnosticism, to reading G. K. Chesterton.

Works

  • Skrewdriver – First Ten Years
  • Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G. K. Chesterton (1995)
  • Tolkien: Man and Myth (1998)
  • Tolkien: A Celebration (1999) editor
  • Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief (2000)
  • Old Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc (2002)
  • C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church (2003)
  • The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde (2004)

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Last updated: 05-07-2005 03:29:12
Last updated: 05-13-2005 07:56:04