From Booklist
After the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who became the apostle Paul, on the road to Damascus, the most famous Christian conversion is, Wills says, Augustine's in a fourth-century Milanese garden. Moreover, Wills contends, Augustine's conversion as recounted in the eighth book of Confessiones--which Wills calls, to expunge any suggestion of criminality and better indicate its tone, The Testimony--derives from Luke's account of Saul's experience in Acts (like Saul, Augustine heard a directive voice) and incidents and emblems in Genesis and the Gospels (the garden of Augustine echoes Eden and Gethsemane; the fig tree at which Augustine casts himself down echoes the blasted fig tree cursed by Jesus in Matthew 21). In his introduction and commentary, Wills clarifies context and cons the famous text more thoroughly than any literary critic would nowadays, and his translation of it--the fourth, and final, of the extracts from ^Confessiones he has published yearly since 2001--successfully communicates the immense literary skill Augustine commanded. If only more of Wills' Augustine were forthcoming! Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

James Wood, The London Review of Books
Augustine flourishes in Wills’s hands.

Book Description
As relevant today as it was when it was originally written sixteen hundred years ago, Augustine’s Confessiones continues to influence contemporary religion, language, and thought. Reading with fresh, keen eyes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Garry Wills has brought his superb gifts of analysis and insight to bear on this classic of Western tradition in a series of ambitious and critically acclaimed translations and interpretations. In Saint Augustine’s Conversion, Augustine’s story draws to its dramatic conclusion in what Wills calls the "hinge" chapter of the bishop’s confessional opus. With an illuminating introduction and extensive notes throughout, Wills provides a richly rewarding and inventive interpretation of Augustine’s seminal work for a new generation of readers.

About the Author
Garry Wills is one of the most respected writers on religion today. He is the author of Saint Augustine’s Childhood, Saint Augustine’s Memory, and Saint Augustine’s Sin, the first three volumes in this series, as well as the Penguin Lives biography Saint Augustine. His other books include "Negro President": Jefferson and the Slave Power, Why I Am a Catholic, Papal Sin, and Lincoln at Gettysburg, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Garry Wills translates the eighth book of Augustine's Confessions, the most cited and well-known book, which as Wills points out in his introduction, "tells the second most famous religious conversion story in Western literature, second only to that of Saint Paul, on which it is modeled." The structure of the work, the controversies surrounding who was responsible for Augustine's conversion, and the questions Augustine raises about the nature of conversion itself are all artfully illuminated in the splendid introduction. If Augustine uses this story as a way to elaborate myths about his conversion, Wills concludes that "they all fit into a larger testimony that celebrates the word of God more than the life of Augustine."

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews