Strange Vagabond of God: the Story of John Bradburne / John Dove

John Bradburne's life was a remarkable spiritual odyssey. After wartime service on the Indian subcontinent, he became a perennial pilgrim, never at home in the world, not even in his native England. Restless wanderings lead him through Europe to the Holy Land, to a succession of religious communities, and ultimately to Africa where he met a violent death during the Zimbabwean war of independence. This deeply sympathetic biography, written by a personal friend, is enriched by extensive quotations from John Bradburne's poems and diaries, offing a rare insight into the mind and character of this quite extraordinary man.

In particular, the account of his life among the lepers, his murder, and the astonishing happenings during his funeral service, make it clear that here was a man singled out for sanctity, marked with a special charisma. In the twenty years since his death, a devotion to his memory as sprung up in sothern Africa. Poet, mystic, hermit, and vagabond, John Bradburne's strange life was a ceaseless quest for God.