This month's Book of the Month is Augustine the African by Professor Catherine Conybeare (MR 1982-85). 

About the Book

Augustine of Hippo (354–430), also known as Saint Augustine, was one of the most influential theologians in history. His writings, including the autobiographical Confessions and The City of God, helped shape the foundations of Christianity and Western philosophy. But for many centuries, Augustine’s North African birth and Berber heritage have been simply dismissed. Catherine Conybeare, a world-renowned Augustine scholar, here puts the “African” back in Augustine’s story. As she relates, his seminal books were written neither in Rome nor in Milan, but in Africa, where he had returned as a wanderer during a perilous time when the Western Roman Empire was crumbling. Using extant letters and other shards of evidence, Conybeare retraces Augustine’s travels, revealing how his groundbreaking works emerge from an exile’s perspective within an African context. In its depiction of this Christian saint, Augustine the African upends conventional wisdom and traces core ideas of Christian thought to their origins on the African continent.

Recommended for

• History lovers
• Budding Humanities Academics

About the OKS Author

Catherine Conybeare attended King’s in Marlowe House from 1982 to 1985. Since leaving King’s, Catherine read Classics at Corpus Christi College, The University of Oxford where she was awarded her BA. From there, Catherine harnessed her love of Medieval Studies to gain her MA and PhD at The University of Toronto where she specialised in Latin literature, late antiquity, and particularly Augustine of Hippo. Rising in her career, Catherine has been the recipient several fellowships, awards, and achieved the high honour of Professorship in 2019.

Last September, Catherine gave a talk on this book to King’s pupils. You can read all about it here.

Augustine the African was published in August 2025, and can be purchased from Amazon.