Marilynne Robinson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Marilynne Robinson
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Robinson in 2012
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| Born | Marilynne Summers November 26, 1943 Sandpoint, Idaho, U.S. |
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Fred Robinson
(m. 1967; div. 1989) |
| Children | 2 |
Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is a famous American writer. She writes both novels and essays. She has won many important awards for her writing. These include the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005 and the National Humanities Medal in 2012. In 2016, she also received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in 2016. Marilynne Robinson taught writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop from 1991 until she retired in 2016. She is especially known for her novels Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). Her books often explore themes of faith and life in the countryside. Her essays cover many topics, like the connection between religion and science, American history, and politics.
Contents
Early Life and School
Marilynne Summers Robinson was born on November 26, 1943. Her hometown is Sandpoint, Idaho. Her parents were Ellen and John J. Summers. Her father worked for a lumber company. Her brother, David Summers, is an art historian.
Marilynne went to Pembroke College, which was a women's college at Brown University. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1966. She then went on to get her PhD in English from the University of Washington in 1977.
Her Writing Career
Marilynne Robinson has written five highly praised novels. These include Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). She also wrote Home (2008), Lila (2014), and Jack (2020).
Her novel Housekeeping was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. Gilead won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. Home received the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2009. Home and Lila are companion novels to Gilead. They tell stories about the same families during the same time period.
Robinson has also written many nonfiction books. Some of these are Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution (1989) and The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (1998). Her most recent nonfiction book, Reading Genesis, was released in March 2024. Her books have been translated into 36 different languages.
She has also written many articles and essays. These have appeared in well-known magazines. Some of these magazines include Harper's and The New York Review of Books.
Teaching and Academic Life
From 1991 to 2016, Marilynne Robinson was a professor at the University of Iowa. She taught English and creative writing there. She has also been a visiting professor at many other colleges. These include Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In 2009, she gave a series of talks at Yale University. These talks were about how people think about themselves. In 2011, she gave a special lecture at the University of Oxford. She was chosen as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. In 2018, she was the fourth woman chosen to give the Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge University. These lectures are about Christian theology.
Her writings and papers are kept at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. This is a special collection for important American literature.
Awards and Honors
Marilynne Robinson has received many awards for her writing and academic work. In 2006, she won the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. She also received the Park Kyong-ni Prize in 2013. In 2016, she was given the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. The Tulsa Library Trust honored her with the Helmerich Distinguished Author Award in 2021.
Many universities have given her honorary degrees. These are special awards that recognize her achievements. She received one from Oxford University in 2010 and Brown University in 2012. Other universities that have honored her include the University of Iowa, Yale University, and Cambridge University.
Praises for Her Work
Many important people have praised Marilynne Robinson's writing. Rowan Williams, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, called her "one of the world's most compelling English-speaking novelists." He said her voice is very important for both the church and society.
In 2015, President Barack Obama quoted Robinson in a speech. He was talking about having "an open heart." He said that Robinson describes this as "that reservoir of goodness... that we are able to do each other in the ordinary cause of things." Later in 2015, Obama and Robinson had a conversation published in The New York Review of Books. They talked about American history and the role of faith.
Personal Life
Marilynne Robinson was raised as a Presbyterian. She later became a Congregationalist. She attends and sometimes preaches at the Congregational United Church of Christ in Iowa City. Her faith and interest in the ideas of John Calvin are important in her novels. For example, Gilead is about a fictional Congregationalist minister.
In 1967, she married Fred Miller Robinson. He was also a writer and a professor. They divorced in 1989. They have two sons. Marilynne wrote her novel Housekeeping in the evenings while her sons slept. She has said that being a mother changed her view of life and herself.
Robinson currently divides her time between northern California and upstate New York.
Images for kids
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Marilynne Robinson in 2012
See also
In Spanish: Marilynne Robinson para niños
