[bksvol-discuss] Re: FW: Gilead' captures Pulitzer Prize for fiction
- From: "Amber Wallenstein" <amber.wallens@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2005 09:33:14 -0400
EMAIL THIS EmailI would love to see this book on bookshare... If nobody scans
it, I will look for it.
Amber
"I don't want to just mess with your head. I want to mess with your life.
I
want you to miss appointments, burn dinner, skip your homework. I want you
to tell your wife to take that moonlight stroll on the beach at Waikiki
with
the resort tennis pro while you read a few more chapters." ~ Stephen King
e-mail: awallens@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
----- Original Message -----
From: Allison Hilliker
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 12:09 AM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] FW: Gilead' captures Pulitzer Prize for fiction
Hi all,
Thought some may find interesting. Anyone scanning Gilead yet?
Allison
'Gilead' captures Pulitzer Prize for fiction
By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY
NEW YORK - The novel Gilead and the Broadway drama Doubt, a parable, which
both deal with religious beliefs and doubts, won Pulitzer Prizes on Monday. (
Extremism under scrutiny: Marilynne Robinson's Gilead examines polarization
in society.
Marilynne Robinson won the fiction award for her graceful and thoughtful
novel about a 76-year-old Iowa minister looking back at his life and his
forebears.
John Patrick Shanley won the drama prize for a play that deals with a priest
suspected of molesting a child and with a nun who takes him on, defying a
patriarchal
church.
In journalism, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times each won two
prizes. The award for investigative reporting went to the Willamette Week
of Portland, Ore., with a circulation of 90,000, for exposing a former
governor's sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl.
Robinson, 61, who previously won a National Book Critics Circle prize for
Gilead and the PEN/Hemingway Award for her 1981 debut, Housekeeping, said of
winning
a Pulitzer: "It's an award you've heard of your entire life. But I'm aware
there are lots of good books, and there is always something accidental when
one is singled out."
Gilead is written in the form of a letter the Rev. John Ames, in failing
health, is writing to his 6-year-old son in 1956. It deals with the minister's
life and the lives of his father and grandfather, both of them preachers. One
is a pacifist, the other is a gun-toting abolitionist.
Robinson, who teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Iowa City, says the
novel reflects her belief that "America is quite a religious country, but it's
the extremes that have taken over the public discussion. I think many people
have a different experience and understanding."
Shanley, 54, said he was 'floored" when he heard the news. "If you work in
the entertainment field, you're always surprised when things go well. You have
to gear yourself toward disaster in order to survive."
Of his play, he said: "I think that there are certain issues on the table in
this time we live in. ... There are many people of conviction who live in the
cemetery of ideas. ... People who entertain doubt are living in the
combustion of life ... I think it may reflect that we're tired of people being
utterly
certain of where they stand all the time."
The prizes of $10,000 each are awarded by Columbia University upon the
recommendation of an 18-member Pulitzer board. In lieu of the cash prize, the
winner
in public service receives a gold medal.
Contributing: Elysa Gardner
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