My New Article on C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces

John Anthony Dunne

I am pleased to say that my newest article has just appeared in the latest issue of Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal—the only academic journal devoted exclusively to the life and work of C. S. Lewis. My article is on C. S. Lewis’ (arguably) greatest work of fiction, Till We Have Faces, and looks at the potential influence of the biblical book of Esther on the novel. Below is the title and the abstract if you’re interested in checking it out. You can get a copy of the journal issue here if you’re interested as well.

“‘Nothing Beautiful Hides Its Face’: The Hiddenness of Esther in C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces,” Sehnsucht: The C. S. Lewis Journal 9 (2015): 75–88.

One of the central themes of C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces is commonly agreed to be the theme of hiddenness. The present study seeks to demonstrate this further by showing how Lewis alludes to the biblical story of Esther, the only book in the Bible where God is unmentioned. Evidence for multiple allusions to the Esther story is provided and is then shown to fit Lewis’ chief aims in the novel with particular contribution to the thematic matrix of hiddenness.

John Anthony Dunne
John Anthony Dunne
John holds a PhD from the University of St Andrews, where he studied under Professor N. T. Wright. He currently serves as Associate Professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

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