It's the Maxwell Institute podcast.

I'm Blair Hodges.

The New York Times review of books says Marilynne Robinson is not like any other writer.

She's created a small, rich, and fearless body of work in which religion exists unashamedly,

as does doubt unashamedly.

Robinson is perhaps best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead. This year she

received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Her latest book is called The Givenness

of Things. It's a non-fiction collection of essays on topics like science and religion, grace, and

Christology. Robinson is in her final year as professor of English and creative writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop.

She joins us over the telephone from Iowa City to talk about reading, writing, and faith.

Questions and comments about this and other episodes can be sent to MI Podcast at BYU.edu.

A full transcript of this interview is available at m.bY.U.edu.edu slash m i.podcast. Marilyn Robinson, welcome to the

Maxwell Institute podcast. Thank you. It's been about 35 years since you published your first novel

housekeeping, and that's a book that made it onto the shortlist for the Pulitzer Prize, and your 2004 novel,

Gilead, won that award.

And today we're going to be talking about your latest book, which is a book of nonfiction

essays called The Givenness of Things.

And I thought it was interesting that your total of nonfiction books now surpasses your

total of fiction books five to four.

Well, you know, it doesn't expect any special

intention on my part I I give lectures a lot if someone asked me an interesting

question I have a tendency to write a lecture and then over the course of time

...