Through the Narrow Gate is Karen Armstrong's intimate memoir of life inside a Catholic convent. With refreshing honesty and clarity, the book takes readers on a revelatory adventure that begins with Armstrong's decision in the course of her spiritual training offers a fascinating view into a shrouded religious life, and a vivid, moving account of the spiritual coming age of one of our most loved and respected interpreters of religious.

After leaving her religious order in 1969, Karen Armstrong took a degree at Oxford University and taught modern literature. She is also the author of the bestselling A History of God. Her other books include Beginning of the World, The Gospel According to Woman, Buddha, Holy War, and Mohammed.
Now featuring a new introduction by the author, Through the Narrow Gate is an articulate, highly compelling autobiography concerning life inside a Catholic convent. A leading religious scholar, author, and commentator (who eventually left her religious order in 1969), Armstrong takes readers on a candid if not revelatory adventure that begins with her decision, at age 17, to become a nun and devote herself to God. What she discovers over the course of her religious trainingand Mary McCarthy once called this work "the most full and honest book that I've read on this subject"gives readers a fascinating view into a shrouded religious life.