Merton, Thomas (James) (1915–1968)

French-born US Catholic monk and writer. He converted from agnosticism to Catholicism and in 1941 entered a Trappist monastery at Gethsemani, Kentucky, taking the name Louis. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), became a best-seller and made him a Catholic folk hero. He continued to write poetry and religious works, and after his ordination in 1949, served as master of students, then master of novices. Also drawn to solitude, he won permission to live as a hermit on his monastery's grounds (from 1965).

Merton was born in Prades, France. Following his mother's premature death, he was raised in France, England, and the USA. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English from Columbia University. In later life he was increasingly preoccupied with social concerns and he became a major figure in the 1960s antiwar movement. In 1968 he was allowed to pursue a growing interest in Oriental mysticism by visiting the Far East; while attending a religious conference in Thailand he was apparently electrocuted by a faulty fan in his hotel room.