Marilynne Robinson’s story about a fearful, awestruck girl living on the fringes of society revisits the characters and setting of Gilead and Home
Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson is an American novelist and essayist who has received numerous awards across her writing career
On top of her literary awards, Marilynne Robinson can bask in presidential approbation, too: ‘Your writings have fundamentally changed me’, President Obama told her. He went on to add, ‘I think for the better… I really do believe that.’
The Former Archbishop of Canterbury – and Booker Prize 2021 judge – Rowan Williams is another admirer. Robinson, especially in her books centred on the Calvinist Ames household, has ‘a voice we urgently need to attend to’, he said. According to the matter of fact author, ‘I think and write about religion because I am religious’. Indeed, she is an occasional preacher at her Congregationalist church in Iowa City.
Her novel Lila was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2015 and she was shortlisted, for her entire body of work, for the Man Booker International Prize 2011 and again in 2013.
Background
Between 2005 - 2015, the Man Booker International Prize recognised one writer for their achievement in fiction.
Worth £60,000, the prize was awarded every two years to a living author who had published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.
The winner was chosen solely at the discretion of the judging panel and there were no submissions from publishers.
The Man Booker International Prize was different from the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction in that it highlighted one writer’s overall contribution to fiction on the world stage. In focusing on overall literary excellence, the judges considered a writer’s body of work rather than a single novel.