Story of a Nun (Novel)
Story of a Nun (Original: The Nun's Story ) is a novel by Kathryn Hulme , which appeared on September 6, 1956 by Atlantic-Little Brown . The novel was first presented as "Book of the Month" in the United States and reached number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list .
It has been erroneously assumed on various occasions that the novel reflects Hulme's own experiences, but in fact it is based on the life and memories of Marie Louise Habets , a former nun of the Sisters of Mercy of Jesus and Mary , a nursing congregation who worked with refugees in 1945 encountered in post-war Germany. Habets later moved to the United States with Kathryn Hulme, Hulme converted to the Roman Catholic Church .
action
The main character of the book, Gabrielle van der Mal, the daughter of a well-known Belgian surgeon, joins a large congregation of sisters as a postulant . A large part of the book describes her career, her hopes and difficulties during the first years and the first major stages of a newcomer: postulate, clothing , novitiate , temporal and perpetual vows. Gabrielle, later Lukas's sister, enters for various reasons; one of the main reasons is probably her ardent desire to work as a missionary sister in Africa on a remote station in the bush. After the first year and a half that the novices spend in the monastery of the mother house , several months of study in tropical medicine and about two years in which she was employed as a nurse in a mental hospital, after the solemn vows, the upper sister Luke actually sent to Belgian- Congo .
When she returns after twelve years in the mission, she finds it increasingly difficult to exercise vowed obedience, and in the turmoil of World War II she finally asks for dispensation from the religious vows that the local bishop can grant at that time. Some time after her father was shot by German airmen, she left the community; the reader learns that she will join one of the Belgian underground organizations as a nurse.
filming
After the novel was partly considered unfilmable when it was published, it was filmed in 1959 under the direction of Fred Zinnemann ; the script for the film of the same name was written by Robert Anderson . The main role was played by Audrey Hepburn , who received an Academy Award nomination for her performance .