The Givenness of Things: Essays

WITH A TWO-PART INTERVIEW BETWEEN MARILYNNE ROBINSON AND PRESIDENT OBAMA THAT FIRST APPEARED IN THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

The incomparable Marilynne Robinson has delivered an impassioned critique of contemporary society--our addiction to technology, our materialism--while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.

Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit both in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past--Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer, and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or drawing attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display.

Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to study our cultural heritage in search of both wisdom and guidance and to offer grace to one another.

Marilynne Robinson is the recipient of a 2012 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama, for ＂her grace and intelligence in writing.＂ She is the author ofGilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Home, winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her first novel, Housekeeping, won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Robinson’s nonfiction books include The Givenness of Things, When I Was a Child I Read Books, Absence of Mind, The Death of Adam, andMother Country, which was nominated for a National Book Award. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Iowa City.