This is a fascinating collaboration of compelling human stories by a well-known author with powerful contemporary paintings by a high-profile artist. Sara Maitland's compelling human stories give voice to Chris Gollon's powerful contemporary sequence of "Stations of the Cross" (painted from life and reproduced in the book in high-res colour images): a unique and potent collaboration. The Stations were commissioned for St John on Bethnal Green, a visually prominent London Anglican church designed by Sir John Soane, the neo-classical architect who also created the Bank of England and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. In 2001 the congregation made the extraordinary decision to commission a site-specific "Stations of the Cross", the traditional 14 pictures of the last day of Jesus' human life, used from the Middle Ages onwards for meditation and prayer.Perhaps unexpectedly, they chose a contemporary artist not best known for his religious works: Chris Gollon. By Easter 2008 the whole series was completed; the sequence was first used on Good Friday when the pictures gained considerable media attention. The commission for the Stations has taken 8 years to fulfil and they have been widely featured in national broadsheets, arts press and all denominations of religious arts press. The paintings are now reflected in a sequence of stories: first-person narratives by a well-known author who has been closely involved with the project.

Author Biography

Sara Maitland was born in 1950. Her first novel Daughter of Jerusalem won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1979. Since then she has written five more novels and has published five collections of short stories.