Shakeshafte and Other Plays

Gathered together for the first time, these three plays by Rowan Williams-known throughout the world not only as a religious leader and theologian but also as a poet and critic-explore the inner life of words and images.

"Shakeshafte" imagines an encounter between a young sixteenth century Englishman with a faintly familiar surname and an undercover Jesuit missionary. Two visions of how words change the world collide and converge and slip away again.

"The Flat Roof of the World" introduces us to the ageing and troubled artist and poet, David Jones, haunted by his experience of both war and love, struggling to hold together a world of insight and connectedness that is being torn apart by modernity-and by his own fragmented and traumatic history.

"Lazarus" is a vivid meditation on what it means for a word literally to give life.

Dramatically and verbally intense, these plays memorably open up the space where faith and imagination speak to each other.