Epic Poem by Tolkien published, and Cormac McCarthy gets PEN award

We have two significant news items of interest to readers of Catholic fiction.

First, J.R.R. Tolkien’s heretofore unknown and unpublished epic narrative poem, Sigurd and Gudrún, written in the 1930s and edited by son Christopher Tolkien, has just been published. According to this article in the Guardian UK,

The 500-stanza poem is closely modelled on the Elder Edda, a collection of Norse myths preserved in a 13th-century manuscript, a pedigree Christopher Tolkien described as “unknown territory” for most people….

“My hope is that some of those who appreciate and admire the works of my father will find it illuminating in respect of Old Norse poetry in general, in his own treatment of the fierce, passionate and mysterious legend, and in this further and little known aspect of him as both philologist and poet. Above all I hope they will take pleasure in this poetry.”

And there’s big literary news about a very different but equally brilliant writer of what I, at least, regard as “Catholic fiction”, and whose works I hope to be able to review soon: Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer Prize winning author of No Country for Old Men, The Road and Blood Meridian, has been awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Lifetime Achievement Award for U.S. literature.

Here’s an article about the award from the CBC.