Undone: A Modern Rendering of John Donne's Devotions

As the world entered the long night of 2020, Philip Yancey turned to John Donne's Devotions, a nearly 400-year-old manuscript, for guidance. In it, he found a trustworthy companion for living through a global pandemic--or any other crisis. As Yancey says, "Nothing had prepared me for Donne's raw account of confrontations with God."



By faithfully and poetically rendering Donne's 17th century prose into 21st century vernacular, Yancey opens up this classic work to a new generation of readers. He presents these Job-like meditations on sickness and suffering, alongside his own reflections, in a series of 30 readings that examine the frailty of the human heart, the goodness and sovereignty of God, and the eternal hope of the Resurrection.

Philip Yancey's books have garnered 13 Gold Medallion Awards from Christian publishers and booksellers. He currently has more than 17 million books in print, published in over 50 languages. Many of his works explore central issues of the Christian faith, such as award-winning titles like The Jesus I Never Knew, What's So Amazing About Grace? and Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

John Donne was a priest and scholar, often considered the greatest poet of the 16th century. His work is distinguished by his ability to explore the paradoxes of the Christian faith, of blessing and suffering, of divine and human, and in the midst of his own struggle with sickness, he devotes his writing to the nature of life and death itself through the lens of illness and pain.