The Bridge of San Luis Rey

First published in 1927 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1928, “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” is the moving story of a tragic accident and its aftermath by American author Thornton Wilder. The novel tells the fictional story of the victims of a horrific collapse of an Incan rope bridge in Peru and how they came to be on the bridge on that fateful day. Set in the early 18th century, the novel begins with a description of the bridge’s collapse, which claimed the lives of all five people who were crossing it, by the tragedy’s sole witness: a Franciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who was almost crossing the bridge himself when it collapsed. Brother Juniper wishes to make sense of the day’s events and hopes to understand how the tragedy relates to Divine Providence by finding out all that he can about the victims. The friar begins a philosophical and introspective journey that will last him several years and takes him thousands of miles. Critically acclaimed and deeply thoughtful, “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” endures as a timeless story of loss, tragedy, and man’s eternal search for meaning in a cruel world.