Ed Rice

Ed Rice (October 23, 1918 – August 8, 2001) was an American author, publisher, photojournalist and painter, best known as a close friend of Thomas Merton. Rice wrote more than 20 books, including "Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton," a best-selling 1990 biography of the famous 19th-century explorer, and was the founder (1953) of "Jubilee" magazine.

Rice attended Columbia University, where he become close friends with Merton, Robert Lax, and Robert Giroux (who later co-founded Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Rice was editor of the "Jester" humor magazine in his senior year; he graduated in 1940.

Rice chronicled his friendship with Merton in the 1970 book "The Man in the Sycamore Tree: The Good Times and Hard Life of Thomas Merton." Also in 1970, he published "John Frum He Come," a book documenting the South Pacific cargo cults -- a subject Merton was also interested in.

External links

* [http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/may01/may01_feature_rice.html Ed Rice profile] by Mary Cummings, published in the Columbia alumni magazine, May 2001
* [http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/mar02/mar02_obituaries1.html Obituary]