columnist; son of Evelyn Waugh Evelyn Waugh – novelist; converted to Roman Catholicism in 1930; his religious ideas are manifest, either explicitly or implicitly, in all of his later work; strongly orthodox and conservative Roman Catholic Morris West Australian writer; several of his novels are set in the Vatican Donald E. Westlake – American writer; three-time Edgar Award winner Antonia White – author of four novels – including her 1933 novel Frost in May, based on her experiences at her Catholic boarding school – two children's books, and a short story collection. Henry William Wilberforce – English journalist and essayist Tennessee Williams – convert, American playwright and poet, who wrote such noted plays as The Glass Menagerie, The Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire. D.B. Wyndham-Lewis – English comic writer and biographer Oscar Wilde – late-19th-century playwright and poet; fascinated by Catholicism as a young man and much of his early poetry shows this heavy influence; embraced a homosexual lifestyle later on, but converted to Catholicism on his deathbed (receiving a conditional baptism as there is some evidence, including his own vague recollection, that his mother had him baptised in the Catholic Church as a child) Gene Wolfe – science-fiction author; has written many novels and multivolume series; some, such as the Book of the New Sun and the Book of the Long Sun, are considered to be religious allegory Julia Amanda Sargent Wood (pen name, Minnie Mary Lee; 1825 – 1903), American author Carol Zaleski – American philosopher of religion, essayist and author of books on Catholic theology and on comparative religion French language There was a strong Catholic strain in 20th-century French literature, encompassing Paul Claudel, Georges Bernanos, François Mauriac, and Julien Green. A–K Honoré de Balzac – 19th-century novelist; wrote in a preface to La Comédie Humaine that "Christianity, and especially Catholicism, being a complete repression of man's depraved tendencies, is the greatest element in Social Order" Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly – 19th-century novelist and short story writer, who specialised in mysterious tales that examine hidden motivation and hinted evil bordering the supernatural Charles Baudelaire – 19th-century decadent poet; long debate as to what extent Baudelaire was a believing Catholic; work is dominated by an obsession with the Devil and original sin, and often utilises Catholic imagery and theology Georges Bernanos novelist, a devout Catholic; novels include The Diary of a Country Priest