DESMOND TUTU, a spiritual biography of South Africa's confessor

368pp., illus., paperback, First SA Edition, No Place, 2021

First published in the USA in 2021.

Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Afterword by Desmond Tutu.

"Much has been written about Desmond Tutu, some of it by Dr. Michael Battle. But in this important work he gives us something very special indeed, moving beyond any political lens and instead revealing the interpersonal spirituality that lies at the heart of Tutu's prophetic and political action. In these pages, we see a familiar friend in a fresh light. And that light shining through him is a light that comes from God, which no darkness can overcome." The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and Author of Love is the Way: Holding on to hope in troubling times

"Michael Battle has not only given us a powerful framing of Desmond Tutu's spiritual life, one that will be studied for many years, but he has also made clear what it means to see someone as a saint who lives not in unapproachable light, but in the real struggles of this world where God is to be found and known. Battle knows that world as well as he knows Desmond Tutu and it is from the deep well of knowledge of both God's ways of justice and one of God's humble servants that he offers us this gem of a book." Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies, Yale University

Michael Battle is Herbert Thompson Professor of Church and Society and Director of the Desmond Tutu Center at General Theological Seminary in New York, and President and CEO of the PeaceBattle Institute. His books include Reconciliation: The Ubuntu theology of Desmond Tutu. Battle lived in residence with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa for two years and was ordained a priest in South Africa by Tutu in 1993.