Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. During her writing career Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, the 2012 National Humanities Medal, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016 Robinson was named to Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991, and retired in the spring of 2016. Robinson is best known for her novels Housekeeping (1980) and Gilead (2004). Her novels are noted for both their mid-20th century American Midwest setting as well as their thematic depiction of rural life and faith. The subjects of her essays have spanned numerous topics, including the relationship between religion and science, nuclear pollution, John Calvin, and contemporary American politics. 2Biography Robinson (née Summers) was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho. 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 B.A., magna cum laude in 1966, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kapp