Joy Davidman
The American poet embraced militant atheism and Marxism despite her Jewish upbringing in New York. A profound mystical experience during her 1946 mental breakdown shattered her materialist worldview completely. Davidman joined a Presbyterian church shortly after this spiritual encounter while still recovering. She later married C.S. Lewis, profoundly influencing his later writings and emotional life. Their relationship inspired Lewis’s heartbreaking memoir A Grief Observed after her death from cancer.
