West, Morris

West, Morris (Morris Langlo West), 1916–99, Australian novelist, b. Melbourne. West's novels often reveal an interest in both Roman Catholicism and international politics, as reflected in his best-selling The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), which concerns a Soviet cardinal who is named pope during an international crisis. Also set in the Vatican are West's The Clowns of God (1981) and Lazarus (1990). Among his other novels are The Devil's Advocate (1959), Harlequin (1974), The World Is Made of Glass (1983), Cassidy (1986), Vanishing Point (1996), and Eminence (1998). His spiritual memoir, A View from the Ridge: The Testimony of a Twentieth-Century Christian, was published in 1996.

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