Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction . In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.
21-492: Robinson is best known for her novels Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). Her novels are noted for their thematic depiction of faith and rural life. The subjects of her essays span numerous topics, including the relationship between religion and science , US history , nuclear pollution , John Calvin , and contemporary American politics. Robinson was born Marilynne Summers on November 26, 1943, in Sandpoint, Idaho ,
42-708: A Congregationalist , worshipping and sometimes preaching at the Congregational United Church of Christ in Iowa City. Her Congregationalism and her interest in the ideas of John Calvin have been important in many of her novels, including Gilead , which centers on the life and theological concerns of a fictional Congregationalist minister. In an interview with the Church Times in 2012, Robinson said: "I think, if people actually read Calvin, rather than read Max Weber , he would be rebranded. He
63-415: A transient ) comes to take care of them. At first the three are a close-knit group, but as Lucille grows up she comes to dislike their eccentric life-style and moves out. When Ruthie's well-being is questioned by the courts, Sylvie returns to life on the road and takes Ruthie with her. The novel treats the subject of housekeeping, not only in the domestic sense of cleaning, but in the larger sense of keeping
84-479: A friend of mine, the writer Marilynne Robinson, calls 'that reservoir of goodness, beyond, and of another kind, that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things.'" In November 2015, The New York Review of Books published a two-part conversation between Obama and Robinson, covering topics in American history and the role of faith in society. Robinson was raised as a Presbyterian and later became
105-560: A graduate of the university. The Yale Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has acquired the papers of writer and essayist Marilynne Robinson. Robinson has received numerous literary, theological and academic honors, among them the 2006 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the 2013 Park Kyong-ni Prize , and the 2016 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2021,
126-698: A series of talks titled Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self . In May 2011, Robinson delivered the University of Oxford 's annual Esmond Harmsworth Lecture in American Arts and Letters at the university's Rothermere American Institute . On April 19, 2010, she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Robinson was selected by
147-408: A spiritual home for one's self and family in the face of loss, for the girls experience a series of abandonments as they come of age. The novel is narrated by Ruth from the perspective of the transparent eyeball . This narration style was used by the transcendentalist authors who influenced Robinson, including Ralph Waldo Emerson . Although no dates are specified, the novel likely takes place in
168-538: Is a 1980 novel by Marilynne Robinson . The novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel. In 2003, Guardian Unlimited named Housekeeping one of the 100 greatest novels of all time, describing the book as "Haunting, poetic story, drowned in water and light, about three generations of women." Time magazine also included
189-542: Is a very respectable thinker." In 1967 she married Fred Miller Robinson, a writer and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst . The Robinsons divorced in 1989. The couple have two sons. In the late 1970s, she wrote Housekeeping in the evenings while they slept. Robinson said they influenced her writing in many ways, since "[Motherhood] changes your sense of life, your sense of yourself." Robinson divides her time between northern California and upstate New York. Housekeeping (novel) Housekeeping
210-537: Is an international literary award based in South Korea . It was established in 2011 in honor of Park Kyongni , known for her series Toji . The award was founded and sponsored by the Toji Foundation of Culture. According to Complete Review , it was established to be the primary international literary award of South Korea. With a cash prize of $ 100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in
231-527: The 1950s: Ruthie reads the novel Not as a Stranger , a bestseller from 1954; and Sylvie's husband "fought in the Pacific ." Like Ruthie and Lucille, Robinson (born in 1943) was an adolescent in the late 1950s. Presumably, the three Foster sisters were born in the late 1910s (as Sylvie is in her mid-thirties when the main plot begins) and the train accident occurred around 1930 (as the three sisters were in their early teens at that time). The train accident in
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#1732801555459252-528: The 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction (UK). Home and Lila are companions to Gilead and focus on the Boughton and Ames families during the same time period. Robinson is also the author of many nonfiction works, including Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989), The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998), Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from
273-608: The Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University to deliver the 2018 Hulsean Lectures on Christian theology. She was the fourth woman selected for the series which was established in 1790. She has been elected a fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford and of Clare Hall, Cambridge. In 2023, Robinson received the Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus from the University of Washington, the highest honor bestowed upon
294-471: The Modern Myth of the Self (2010), When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays (2012), The Givenness of Things: Essays (2015), and What Are We Doing Here? (2018). Reading Genesis was released on March 12, 2024. Her novels and nonfiction works have been translated into 36 languages. She has written numerous articles, essays and reviews for Harper's , The Paris Review , and The New York Review of Books . In addition to her tenure from 1991 to 2016 on
315-638: The Tulsa Library Trust presented her with the Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. Robinson's alma mater, the University of Washington, honored her with their 2022 Alumni Summa Laude Dignata Award. Robinson has received honorary degrees from over a dozen universities and colleges, starting with Oxford University in 2010 and Brown University in 2012, and followed most recently by the University of Iowa, Yale University, Boston College, Cambridge University, and
336-630: The University of Portland. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams , has described Robinson as "one of the world's most compelling English-speaking novelists", adding that "Robinson's is a voice we urgently need to attend to in both Church and society here [in the UK]." On June 26, 2015, President Barack Obama quoted Robinson in his eulogy for Clementa C. Pinckney of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In speaking about "an open heart," Obama said: "[w]hat
357-502: The daughter of Ellen (Harris) and John J. Summers, a lumber company employee. Her brother is the art historian David Summers , who dedicated his book Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting to her. She did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College , the former women's college at Brown University , receiving her BA magna cum laude in 1966, and being elected to Phi Beta Kappa . At Brown, one of her teachers
378-427: The faculty of the University of Iowa , where she retired as the F. Wendell Miller Professor of English and Creative Writing, Robinson has been writer-in-residence or visiting professor at many colleges and universities, including Amherst College , and the University of Massachusetts Amherst 's MFA Program for Poets and Writers . In 2009, she held a Dwight H. Terry Lectureship at Yale University , where she delivered
399-619: The novel bears many similarities to the Custer Creek train wreck of 1938, in which a passenger train derailed from a bridge into a creek in Montana (the state that borders Idaho), killing 47 people. It remains Montana's worst-ever rail disaster. The film adaptation Housekeeping was released in 1987. It stars Christine Lahti and was directed by Bill Forsyth . The film was shot in and around Nelson, British Columbia . Park Kyong-ni Prize Park Kyong-ni Prize (Korean: 박경리 문학상)
420-456: The novel in its Time 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 . Ruthie narrates the story of how she and her younger sister Lucille are raised by a succession of relatives in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho (some details are similar to Robinson's hometown, Sandpoint, Idaho , particularly the presence of a major rail bridge and direct rail links to Spokane and Montana ). Eventually their aunt Sylvie (who has been living as
441-466: Was the postmodern novelist John Hawkes . She received her PhD in English from the University of Washington in 1977. Robinson has written five highly acclaimed novels: Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004), Home (2008), Lila (2014), and Jack (2020). Housekeeping was a finalist for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (US), Gilead was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer, and Home received
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