Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson was born on November 26, 1943, in Sandpoint, Idaho. She graduated from Brown University in 1966 and earned a PhD in English from the University of Washington in 1977. For over twenty years she taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she profoundly influenced generations of American writers, including Paul Harding and Barack Obama. She is one of America's most celebrated novelists and essayists. Robinson is known for the remarkable gaps between her publications: her debut Housekeeping (1980) was followed more than twenty years later by Gilead (2004, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction), then Home (2008, Orange Prize for Fiction winner), Lila (2014, National Book Award finalist), and Jack (2020). Her essays are collected in volumes including The Death of Adam (1998) and Absence of Mind (2010). Her theological and political essays are widely read alongside her fiction.