Author: Sarah Pulliam Bailey / Source: Press Herald
It took 26 publisher rejections before Madeleine L’Engle could finally get “A Wrinkle in Time” into print in 1962. The book was an instant hit, winning the Newbery Medal the next year, but despite its wild success, L’Engle still had fierce critics.
Perhaps most critical were some conservative Christians who believed that the book promoted the occult or mystical elements. While L’Engle considered herself a devout Christian, and sprinkled the book with scriptural references, she was accused of promoting witchcraft – an accusation made later against “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling.
The accusations didn’t stop the book from being popular for more than 50 years.
A Disney film adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time” opened Thursday, starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine and Zach Galifianakis, and directed by Ava DuVernay of “Selma.” In the story, 13-year-old Meg Murry is guided by three angelic beings on a quest to find her father, a scientist who had gone missing.
“If I’ve ever written a book that says what I feel about God and the universe, this is it,” L’Engle wrote in her journal about “A Wrinkle in Time.” “This is my psalm of praise to life, my stand for life against death.”
Before she died in 2007 at age 88, L’Engle was the rare writer who ran in both liberal mainline Protestant circles and elite literary ones in New York City, and who also made conservative evangelical fans around the country.
L’Engle was part of an exclusive society of authors, including Eugene Peterson, Richard Foster and Philip Yancey, who are popular among evangelical readers.
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“Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys,” L’Engle wrote in her book “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.”
L’Engle is sometimes compared with 20th century British author C.S. Lewis, who wrote popular children’s literature, as well as books defending and explaining the Christian faith. She graduated from Smith College and a collection of her papers is held at Wheaton College, the evangelical school in the Chicago suburbs that also holds some of Lewis’ papers.
She wrote that publishers had trouble with “A Wrinkle in Time” “because…
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