Mary Craig (writer)
{{Short description|British journalist and writer (1928–2019)}}
file:Mary Craig, author and broadcaster.png
Mary Craig (2 July 1928 – 3 December 2019)[https://openlibrary.org/subjects/person:mary_craig_(1928-) Mary Craig][https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2019/12/06/mary-craig-author-broadcaster-wrote-moving-account-sons-struggle/ "Mary Craig, author and broadcaster who wrote a moving account of her son’s struggle with severe illness – obituary"] The Daily Telegraph, 6 December 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2019. was a journalist and a British writer.[http://www.voicesfromsilence.com/home.html Voices From Silence] She lived in Hampshire, England.[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4387255-blessings Blessings: A Heartwarming Classic of Hope]
Life
Craig was born in 1929 in St Helens. Her parents were Annie Mary (née Johnson) and the late William Joseph (Billy) Clarkson, motor salesman, who lived at the Scarisbrick Arms in St Helens. Her father had already died after being trapped with his car in a snow drift the year before and her five year old brother shared the same grave as he fell out of a train while going to his father's funeral.{{Citation |last=Stanford |first=Peter |title=Craig [née Clarkson], Mary (1928–2019), journalist, biographer, and memoirist |date=2023-04-13 |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-90000381076 |work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |access-date=2023-08-26 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000381076 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8}}
She wrote fourteen books starting in 1978, including a trilogy on Tibet, biographies of personalities, including John Paul II, Lech Walesa and Frank Pakenham. She also wrote autobiographical works that addressed the death of Frank, her husband who died of cancer, and the story of their son suffering from Hurler syndrome.[http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2011/06/29/the-suffering-son-who-gave-me-so-much/ The suffering son who gave me so much] The website of her book Voices from Silence says, "Many of her books share a common theme of the examination of spirituality in the post war world."{{Cite web|url=http://www.voicesfromsilence.com/home.html|title=Voices From Silence - Home|website=www.voicesfromsilence.com|access-date=2017-07-23}}
She was the author of Kundun, the first biography of the 14th Dalai Lama to contextualize his story with that of his family members.[https://www.amazon.fr/Kundun-biographie-Dala%C3%AF-Lama-famille/dp/2290323373 Kundun : Une biographie du Dalaï Lama et de sa famille]
To write her book about the Chinese occupation of Tibet (Tears of Blood (1992)), she visited several times Dharamsala, home of the 14th Dalai Lama and of the Central Tibetan Administration, where she forges bonds of lasting friendships. In 1993, she made numerous visits to Dharamsala to interview members of the family of the Dalai Lama to write Kundun, regretting she could not meet the mother of the Dalai Lama, Dekyi Tsering (Amala), disappeared before her visit in North India.Mary Craig, Kundun: une biographie du dalaï-lama et de sa famille, 1998, p. 11-12
Publications
- Voices From Silence, 2010, {{ISBN|0956773907}}
- The Pocket Dalai Lama, 2002, Shambhala Pubns, {{ISBN|9781590300015}}
- His Holiness the Dalai Lama: In My Own Words, 2001, Hodder & Stoughton, {{ISBN|9780340785355}}
- Blessings: A Heartwarming Classic of Hope, Sorin Books; 2000, {{ISBN|1893732193}}
- Waiting for the sun: the harrowing story of a peasant boy in occupied Tibet, Hodder & Stoughton, 1999, {{ISBN|0340721995}}, {{ISBN|9780340721995}}
- Kundun - A Biography of the Family of the Dalai Lama, 1997, Counterpoint, Washington D.C., {{ISBN|978-1887178914}}
- The Last Freedom, Hodder & Stoughton, 1997, {{ISBN|034069078X}}
- Tears of Blood, HarperCollins, 1992, Counterpoint, 1999, {{ISBN|158243025X}}, {{ISBN|9781582430256}}
- Lech Walesa : the leader of Solidarity and campaigner for freedom and human rights in Poland, Exley, 1989, {{ISBN|1850151075}}
- Candles in the dark : six modern martyrs, Hodder and Stoughton, 1984, {{ISBN|0340342544}}
- The crystal spirit : Lech Wałęsa and his Poland, Coronet, 1986, {{ISBN|0340418958}}
- Man from a Far Country : A Portrait of Pope John Paul II, Hodder and Stoughton, 1979, {{ISBN|0340242353}}
- Blessings : an autobiographical fragment, Morrow, 1979, {{ISBN|068803456X}}
- Longford : a biographical portrait, Hodder and Stoughton, 1978, {{ISBN|0340232676}}
Spark from Heaven: The Mystery of the Madonna of Medjugorje Paperback – Aug 1988
by Mary Craig (Author)Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd (1 Jun. 1988)
Language: English
{{ISBN|0340416130}}
{{ISBN|978-0340416136}}
References
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Category:British women journalists
Category:British women writers
Category:People from St Helens, Merseyside