Fr Thomas Merton (Birthplace) (Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales)

 house, catholicism

Thomas Merton, (American Writer, Poet, Trappist Monk)
January 31, 1915, was born at Prades in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales, in the Midi. Prades is a lovely town, now twice as populous (currently about 6,000) as it was when Merton was born there. The house in which he was born still stands at the corner of Rue du 4 Septembre and Rue du Palais de Justice, where in the summer, a beautiful bougainvillea grows in the narrow walled garden.
Merton’s parents took him to the United States early in the war. But he returned to France in 1925, to live and go to school in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, and later to a boarding school in Montauban which he very much disliked, the Lycée Ingres.
After a few years in Britain, he spent the rest of his life in the United States. Eventually as Catholic Monk and Hermit.
He died in Bangkok in 1968.