Madeleine L’Engle
1918–2007.

Madeleine L’Engle was a self-confessed Christian who sought to infuse her work as a writer with what she believed to be true. In this she did not in any way sacrifice her gift of creativity (though she had her own share of controversies in the often-contentious world of Christian publishing). I write in the past tense because I just discovered, after reading a tribute from her long-time friend and collaborator, the Christian poet Luci Shaw, that L’Engle had passed away. Reading Shaw’s memories of L’Engle somehow reminded me of Dorothy Sayers, another Christian writer (and British dame) who also answered to the description Shaw has of her departed friend, compatriot and literary hero: “a powerful woman, large-hearted, fearless, quixotic, profoundly imaginative, unwilling to settle for mediocrity.”