Leaving Alexandria

Winner of the PEN/Ackerley Prize for memoir, 2013.

At fourteen, Richard Holloway left his working-class home north of Glasgow and travelled hundreds of miles to an English monastery to be trained for the priesthood. By twenty-five, he had been ordained and was working in the slums of Glasgow.

In 2000 he controversially resigned as Bishop of Edinburgh, having lost heart with the the Church over its condemnation of homosexuality.

In his years as a priest Richard touched many lives, but behind his confident public face lay a mind troubled by questions. Why is the Church, which claims to be the instrument of God's love, so prone to cruelty and condemnation? And how can a person live with the tension between public faith and private doubt?

With this long-awaited memoir, Richard gives us a wise, poetic and fiercely honest book that recounts a fascinating life - and attempts to answer those questions.

One of the most outspoken and best-loved figures in the modern church, Richard Holloway recently stood down as the Bishop of Edinburgh but remains Gresham Professor of Divinity in the City of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has written for many newspapers in Britain including The Times, the Guardian, Sunday Herald and the Scotsman and presented his own series on BBC Television. He is the author of twenty-three books.

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'Richard Holloway's memoir is endlessly vivid and fascinating. It's the record of a mind too large, too curious and far too generous to be confined within any single religious denomination. His account of how a passionate, intelligent boy grew out of a poor and deprived background without ever losing touch with the humane values it gave him, will be a delight and inspiration to believers, non-believers, and ex-believers alike.' Philip Pullman

'At a time when the world has urgently needed wise and compassionate leadership, this poignant memoir, written with the integrity, intelligence and wit that we expect from Richard Holloway, lays bare the ludicrous and entirely unnecessary mess we have made of religion.' Karen Armstrong

'Holloway brings a lightness of touch, and a sense of humour (often black) to this unflinchingly honest self-examination. And his exposition is carefully crafted, deftly layered, and sprinkled with quotes from a dazzling array of writers, poets, philosophers and theologians, connecting his particular personal struggles to universal spiritual themes.' Weekend Australian