This book challenges experiential esoteric and colloquial understandings of mysticism by
bringing a fresh relevance to the term through an interdisciplinary dialogue between literature
mysticism and theology in the context of postmodernity. In order to achieve this the author
takes selected writings of Iris Murdoch Denise Levertov and Annie Dillard and incorporates
them into various stages of a redesigned mystic way. The fourteenth-century mystic Julian of
Norwich is invoked throughout as a role model whom these three writers seek to emulate as
popular writers contemplatives and theologians. As theologians who are concerned with the
pressing issues of our age Grace Jantzen Dorothee Soelle and Sallie McFague are drawn on as
conversation partners to complete the three-way discussion. The author maintains that
understanding the writing and reading of creative texts in the context of practical mysticism
facilitates an integrated approach to the use of literature for theological expression.
