Catherine Coldstream

Catherine Coldstream on Cloistered

This spring, we look forward to hearing Catherine Coldstream's unique perspective of monastic life as she discusses Cloistered: My Years as a Nun. Coldstream's turbulent recollections reveal that human folly persists, even amongst the secluded devout.

In an evocative memoir, Catherine Coldstream describes life as a contemplative nun in the 1990s, and the dramatic events which led to her flight from the monastery on the brink of the Millennium.

After the shock of her father's death, and with her family scattered, twenty-four-year old Catherine was left grieving and alone. A search for meaning led her to Roman Catholicism and the nuns of Akenside Priory.

Cloistered takes us beyond the grille of an enclosed monastic world with its tight-knit community of dedicated women. We see Catherine, praying in the spareness of her simple cell, tilling the land or singing at Lauds, a novice who has found peace in an ancient way of life. But as she surrenders to her final vows, all is not as it seems behind the Priory's closed doors. Power struggles erupt, and the hothouse atmosphere turns to conflict - with far-reaching consequences for those within.

Catherine comes to realise that divine authority is mediated through flawed and all-too-human channels. She is faced with a dilemma: should she protect the serenity she has found, or speak out?

A love song to a lost community and an honest account of her twelve years in the Order, Cloistered is also a cautionary tale about what can happen when good people cut themselves off from the wider world.

Catherine Coldstream was born in London, and grew up loving music, words, and books. After converting to Roman Catholicism in her twenties, she spent twelve years in a Carmelite monastery where she lived the life of a silent contemplative nun. Since leaving her community she has studied at the Universities of Oxford, East Anglia, and London, and taught theology, philosophy, and ethics in schools. The effects of her years as a nun have never left her and continue to inspire and inform her writing.