Christine Toomey is a celebrated journalist whose extensive international reporting has informed her distinctive literary voice. Her work delves into complex foreign affairs, offering readers a nuanced perspective honed by decades of experience on the ground. Through compelling narratives, she illuminates the human stories behind global events, making her a significant chronicler of our times.
In The Saffron Road, Toomey follows in the footsteps of earlier generations of Buddhist nuns to trace the routes by which the philosophy has spread from a solitary order in a remote area of India in the 5th century BC, via 1950s San Francisco where Zen was popularised by the Beat generation, to the globally-renowned practitioners of mindfulness of today
A memoir set in rural Italy, and a journey through history about a series of earthquakes that devastated the region
Every year, thousands of women choose to become Buddhist nuns. As they make this commitment, they become part of a long tradition of spirituality that stretches back through the centuries and now embraces the radical possibility that the next Dalai Lama could be a woman. In The Saffron Road, award-winning journalist Christine Toomey follows in the footsteps of earlier generations of nuns to trace the historical spread of the religion, from a solitary order in a remote area of India in the 6th century BC to 1950s San Francisco, where the Beat Generation first popularised Zen philosophy, to the globally-renowned practitioners of mindfulness of today. Combining travelogue, history, interviews, and personal reflection, The Saffron Road opens the door on the rarely glimpsed world of ritual and discipline, reflection and enlightenment