Yeats, Charles 1956(?)-

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Yeats, Charles 1956(?)-

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1956; married; wife's name Alison.

CAREER:

Ordained Anglican priest. Durham Ethics, director of consultancy.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Has Keele Failed? Reform in the Church of England, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1995.

Prisoner of Conscience: One Man's Remarkable Journey from Repression to Freedom, Rider (London, England), 2005, published as Prisoner of Conscience: One Man's Experience of Apartheid and Its Effects on His Beliefs, Random House (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charles Yeats is an ordained priest who works as the director of consultancy with Durham Ethics, a company that seeks to help corporations improve their social, moral, and environmental responsibilities to the community at large. Yeats came to international prominence with his conscientious objection to serving in the South African military. From a life of privilege to a prison term for his decision, Yeats gathered his thoughts on world peace and Western imperialism and put it into the form of a book, Prisoner of Conscience: One Man's Remarkable Journey from Repression to Freedom.

Published in the United States as Prisoner of Conscience: One Man's Experience of Apartheid and Its Effects on His Beliefs, the memoir describes in detail the two years Yeats spent in prison, while mixing in the history of South Africa over the past four hundred years. Yeats also explains his views on a number of controversial issues in the Church today, including sex for pleasure and homosexuality. Hazel Rochman, writing in Booklist, noted that "Yeats writes without self-importance," adding that his arguments "lend authority to his final discussion" on contemporary issues in the Church today. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews concluded that the memoir contains "many well-written insights into how one captivating man's mind works."