James Carroll is the author of several books, including Constantine's Sword (2001), The City Below, a New York Times Notable Book of 1994, and his memoir An
American Requiem: God, My Father, And The War That Came Between Us which won several prizes, including the 1996 National Book Award in Nonfiction. Carroll was educated at The Priory School in
Washington, and at an American high school in Wiesbaden, Germany. He attended Georgetown University before entering the seminary. He received
BA & MA degrees at St. Paul's College, the Paulist Fathers' seminary in Washington. In 1965 he studied poetry with Allan Tate at the University of
Minnesota. He was a Civil Rights worker, and community organizer in Washington and New York. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1969.
Carroll was assigned by the Paulist Fathers and Richard Cardinal Cushing to Boston University where he served as Catholic Chaplain from 1969 to 1974.
During those years he published numerous books on religious subjects, and a weekly column in the National Catholic Reporter, earning awards from the
Catholic Press Association, and other organizations. He studied poetry with George Starbuck, and eventually published a book of poems. He remained active in the anti-war movement until the war ended. Carroll left the priesthood to become a writer. In 1974 he was Playwright-in-Residence at the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge, MA. In 1976 he published his first novel, Madonna Red.
It was translated into seven languages. Since then he has published eight additional novels. Carroll is an occasional contributor to numerous journals, including The New Yorker and
The Atlantic Monthly, and his op-ed column appears weekly in the Boston Globe. Carroll has lectured widely, notably delivering the Lowell Lecture at Harvard
University, the Lowell Lecture at Boston College, the Frost Fellowship Lecture at Amherst College, and the Burke Lecture at the University of
California at San Diego. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on its Committee for International Security Studies, He is
a member of the Council of PEN-New England, which he served for four years as Chair. He has been a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University, and a Fellow at the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life at the Harvard Divinity School, where he remains a
Research Associate. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University. He serves as a Trustee of the Boston Public Library.
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