About the Author

JOAN BARTHEL is the author of A Death in Canaan, which spent many weeks on the bestseller list and was made into a CBS TV movie that was nominated for an Emmy Award. Following A Death in Canaan, Barthel wrote A Death in California and collaborated with Rosemary Clooney on Girl Singer. Barthel has written profiles of celebrities for such publications as The New York Times Magazine and The Washington Post Magazine. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

MAYA ANGELOU, who contributed the foreword, is a poet and teacher who became famous with her 1970 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Born in St. Louis, she was raised there and in Stamps, Arkansas, where she felt the sting of racial discrimination. She has lived in San Francisco, where she returned to high school and gave birth to her son, Guy, a few weeks after graduation; in Egypt, Ghana and New York. Angelou, 85, speaks seven languages; in 2000 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She now lives in North Carolina, where she is the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Reviews

"American Saint - The Life of Elizabeth Seton is a map which allows us to follow the journey of this remarkable woman. We are able to examine each stop she made along the way and we are amazed at her courage to get up and start her journey again, against visible and tangible odds." --Maya Angelou, from her foreword for American Saint "A significant book, fascinating in its portrayal of a groundbreaking woman, and a great pleasure to read." --Mary Higgins Clark "A wonderful, terrifying book . . . Remarkable." --Nick Clooney "Barthel is a fine and insightful observer of this larger-than-life woman who was so far ahead two hundred years ago that we're still catching up with her." --Gloria Steinem "A rich and moving chronicle of faith." --Tilar J. Mazzeo, New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot "Thoughtful, sensitive, inspiring, provocative, and reliable." --James Martin, SJ, author of My Life with the Saints