Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson will give a reading from her new collection of essays, When I Was a Child I Read Books, at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 17, in Gailor Auditorium on the campus of the University of the South. The public is welcome, and a book signing will follow in the auditorium lobby.
Ms. Robinson will be on the Sewanee campus to give the Convocation address and receive an honorary degree during Opening Convocation for the Easter semester. She will also meet during her visit with Sewanee students and faculty members from both the College and The School of Theology.
She is a professor of creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of three highly acclaimed novels: Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004) and Home (2008). Robinson has served as writer-in-residence and visiting professor at many colleges and universities, including the University of Kent in England and Amherst College. Her second book, Mother Country: Britain, The Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution, evolved from an essay that she wrote for Harper’s Review and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent collection of essays, When I Was a Child I Read Books, was published last March. Housekeeping was a finalist for the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Gilead was awarded the 2005 Pulitzer, and Home received the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction.