JACKET NOTES | Marina Cantacuzino on 'Forgiveness'

In 2020, during the first Covid lockdown, I suddenly had enough time on my hands to teach myself podcasting and produced The F Word Podcast. On the day the first episode was released, an editor from Simon & Schuster UK contacted me asking if I would consider writing a book. Before long I’d taken myself off to a friend’s cottage in Wales, where alone with my laptop I spent 42 days excavating the complex, messy and gripping subject of forgiveness.   

As founder of The Forgiveness Project charity, I had been immersed in stories of forgiveness for nearly 20 years, filing away bits of information in carefully labelled folders containing links and quotes, pieces of research and anecdotes. These were my building blocks for the book, binding together people’s personal narratives with thoughts and theories relating to psychology, news, politics, literature and contemporary culture.

I was conscious that there was already a plethora of books out there about forgiveness, most of them with an explicit “how to”, religious or academic focus. By contrast, I wanted to write something that would be more of a robust meditation. During the months of writing, editing and redrafting that followed I was amazed by just how often the subject of forgiveness came up, whether in a novel, news report or conversation. In the end, I had to block out the noise for fear of bulking out the book too much: I am a believer in “less is more”.

I wanted to include stories from South Africa because The Forgiveness Project charity was largely inspired by my visit to Cape Town in 2003 when I met Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In the years that followed, I have collected and shared many redemptive stories from South Africa, many from those whose healing was forged through postapartheid restorative initiatives. In this book I write, for instance, about Fr Michael Lapsley, who founded The Institute for Healing of Memories and whose story reflects the nuance and complexity that comes when grappling with concepts of forgiveness; for instance, he is very clear that not forgiving doesn’t mean you’ll be trapped in victimhood.

I’ve been heartened that many readers seem to gravitate towards the chapter on self-forgiveness, called From the Inside Out, because my hope was always to write a book about forgiveness which was relevant to everyone and not just those who’ve suffered great harm. As well as documenting some extraordinary examples of forgiveness, I wanted to give readers a better understanding of how it can operate in our everyday lives, how it can transform fractured relationships and mend broken hearts.

'Forgiveness' by Marina Cantacuzino is published by Simon & Schuster. 

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