Marilynne Robinson, acclaimed author and UCC member, will appear at Synod in the City
Marilynne Robinson, widely regarded as one of America's best contemporary writers, will participate in the UCC's all-day "Synod in the City," June 23 in Hartford, Conn.
As part of the UCC's 50th anniversary General Synod, June 22-26, "Synod in the City" will include dozens of performers, speakers, theologians, musicians, and multimedia events at venues throughout downtown Hartford. The day-long celebration will culminate in the evening with the UCC's churchwide birthday party at the Hartford Civic Center.
Marilynne Robinson released her first novel, Housekeeping, in 1981. The book, about two girls growing up in rural Idaho in the mid-1900s, addresses themes of loss and survival, transience, and coming-of-age. It won a PEN/Hemingway Award.
Following Housekeeping, Robinson began writing essays and book reviews for Harper's, Paris Review, and The New York Times Book Review. She also started teaching. She served as writer-in-residence and visiting professor at numerous colleges and universities, including Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts. From an essay she wrote for Harper's, "Bad News from Britain," Robinson wrote the controversial book, Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution (1989), a finalist for the National Book Award.
In 1998, Robinson published a critically acclaimed collection of essays called The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought. It includes writings that examine the ideas handed down to us from culture.
Robinson's UCC heritage was evident in her next novel, Gilead, which won the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction in 2004 and the Pulitzer Prize in 2005. Gilead is written as a letter from a 76-year-old Congregationalist preacher to his 7-year-old son. The novel received nearly unanimous praise from reviewers. Anna Godbersen of Esquire marveled, "[N]early every sentence demands to be savored ... There has been much talk lately about a religious divide in this country. Gilead, then, may be the perfect book at the perfect time: a deeply empathetic and complex picture of a religious person that is also gorgeously written, and fascinating."