Photo: Christian Scott Heinen Bell / CC0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Robinson is the rare novelist who treats restraint as a virtue. Where others chase output, she lets years pass between books and emerges with something quietly monumental, Gilead and Housekeeping among them. What draws me to her is that the Pulitzer, the National Humanities Medal, and a spot on Time's 100 all came without spectacle, just sentences that hold faith, family, and grace up to the light. Working from rural Sandpoint, Idaho, with no public social presence, she stakes everything on the prose itself. In an age of noise, her insistence on slow, serious thinking feels less like nostalgia and more like quiet defiance.
Overview
Marilynne Summers Robinson (born November 26, 1943) is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Marilynne Robinson
- Name (Japanese)
- マリリン・ロビンソン
- Reading
- まりりん・ろびんそん
- Born
- November 26, 1943 (age 82)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Sagittarius / Goat
- Origin
- Sandpoint, Idaho, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- writer / novelist / essayist / science fiction writer
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Brown University
Awards & achievements
- 1980 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
- 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
- 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
- 2012 National Humanities Medal
- 1999 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
- 2006 Grawemeyer Awards
- 2009 Women's Prize for Fiction
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | Housekeeping | — | |
| Notable work | Gilead | — | |
| Notable work | Home | — | |
| Notable work | Lila | — |
6. Links
Writer — see all → · Novelist — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.