Awards demand humility from their recipients, but that doesn’t mean their humility must be convincing. I am, however, convinced by Marilynne Robinson’s. As a 19th century Transcendentalist accidentally warped to the 21st century, her soul pre-dates most literary awards and so, in some profound sense, has no use for them.*
From USA Today:
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.”
And, from the Iowa Press-Citizen:
Robinson was walking to the WSUI / KSUI radio offices for an interview with the BBC when she received a call from her publicist telling her the good news.
Before the call, the 61-year-old said she hadn’t thought about the possibility of winning. All Pulitzer nominations remain confidential until the winners are announced.
“I just don’t think about those things,” Robinson said. “You write a book for people to read. There is a lot of good books out there, I had no plans for mine to win.”
*This, at least, is what my friends and I liked to claim while we were attending Iowa. Among Marilynne’s eccentricities/anachronisms: she hated cars and refused (– or maybe, never learned how? –) to drive them, and, despite her nearsightedness, never wore corrective lenses. (If she recognized students, she recognized them solely by their writing…)
Related Reading: the complete list of 2005’s Pulitzer Prize winners.