Madeleine Bunting

At Queen Mary University of London, 2015

Madeleine Clare J. Bunting (born March 1964) is an English writer. She was formerly an associate editor and columnist at The Guardian newspaper.

Life and career

Born Clare Bunting in Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, her father was the sculptor John Bunting, who also taught drawing at the Catholic independent school Ampleforth College.[1] The fourth of five children, Madeleine was the youngest daughter from his marriage to Romola Farquharson; the couple separated in 1978.[2] She was educated at Richmond Convent, North Yorkshire, and Brighton, Hove & Sussex VI Form College, followed by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and then Harvard University, where Bunting read History, and received a Knox postgraduate fellowship to study Politics and to teach.

After a period working for Brook Productions (1988–89) Bunting joined The Guardian newspaper in 1990.[3] Her posts at the newspaper over the years were as a news reporter, leader writer, religious affairs editor, associate editor and regular columnist.

Bunting was appointed director of the London-based think tank Demos in June 2006 and took up her position at the beginning of September. The following month she resigned, owing to differences with the trustees over the direction of the organisation. Bunting returned to her old position at The Guardian and wrote a history of an area where she grew up.[4] Bunting left The Guardian in 2013.[3]

The Plot was published by Granta in 2010. The book is partly a memoir of her father and partly an account of the chapel he built on an acre plot of land in North Yorkshire.[5][6] Love Of Country: A Hebridean Journey, published in 2016, concerns visits Bunting made to the Hebrides. It received positive reviews in The Scotsman and The Guardian.[7][8]

Views

Madeleine Bunting is known for her advocacy of religious belief from a liberal position and her rejection of atheism, claiming that new atheists' antipathy to religion makes it impossible for them to criticise it effectively.[9]

However, Madeleine Bunting has been very critical of abuse committed within the Catholic Church in Ireland[10] and elsewhere in the world. Bunting believes the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church is irreversibly compromised.[11]

Personal life

Bunting was formerly married to Patrick Wintour of The Guardian.[12]

Bibliography

  • The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule, 1940-45, HarperCollins (1995) ISBN 0-00-255242-6 (reprint (2004) Pimlico, ISBN 1-84413-086-X)
  • Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives, HarperCollins (2004) ISBN 978-0-00-716372-4
  • The Plot: A Biography of an English Acre, Granta Books (2009) ISBN 978-1-84708-085-1
  • Love Of Country: A Hebridean Journey, Granta (2016) ISBN 978-1847085177

References

  1. ↑ Cocker, Mark (31 October 2009). "The Plot: A Biography of an English Acre by Madeleine Bunting". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  2. ↑ "Obituaries: Ampleforth Journal". John Bunting website. 2010. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Madeleine Bunting". Granta. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  4. ↑ Stephen Brook "Bunting returns to the Guardian", The Guardian website, 19 October 2006. Retrieved on 9 May 2007.
  5. ↑ Bunting, Madeleine (10 October 2009). "Land of my father". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  6. ↑ Kellaway, Kate (18 October 2009). "The Plot by Madeleine Bunting". The Observer. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  7. ↑ Kelly, Stuart (3 November 2016). "Book review: Love of Country, by Madeleine Bunting". The Scotsman. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  8. ↑ Liptrot, Amy (23 November 2016). "Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey review – the edge of Europe". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  9. ↑ Madeleine Bunting "The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it", The Guardian, 7 May 2007. Retrieved on 9 May 2007.
  10. ↑ An abuse too far by the Catholic church
  11. ↑ An inquiry is vital, but the church's moral authority is lost for ever
  12. ↑ Oppenheimer, Jerry (2005). "Front Row: Anna Wintour: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor in Chief". New York City: St Martin's Press. p. 346.
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