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What Are We Doing Here?: Essays

What Are We Doing Here?: Essays

Current price: $18.00
Publication Date: February 12th, 2019
Publisher:
Picador
ISBN:
9781250310385
Pages:
336
Available in 3-7 business days

Description

New essays on theological, political, and contemporary themes, by the Pulitzer Prize winner

Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson’s peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display. What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake American political and cultural life as “deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still.”

About the Author

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 of Gilead, 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, and Mother Country. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Praise for What Are We Doing Here?: Essays

“[A] collection of learned, probing essays...Robinson’s gorgeous, demanding, and enlightening essays, propelled by her intricate vision of unity, radiantly recharge both mind and soul.” —Booklist

"A dense, eccentric book of profound and generous gifts." —Parul Seghal, The New York Times Book Review

“[Robinson’s] eloquent work stands up for a compassionate faith, the value of education, and a sense of decency.” —Publishers Weekly

“[A] trenchant [collection of] essays about faith, values, and history...Sharp, elegant cultural analysis.” —Kirkus Reviews