Author of `Gilead` talks about Korean novelist, her works

U.S. novelist Marilynne Robinson, 70, said that when she was announced the winner of this year`s Park Kyung-ri literary award in September, she felt as if she had been "to the moon," noting that the award was an encouragement to her literary activities.

Being established in the name of the late South Korean author of the epic novel "Toji" (The Land), the award is co-sponsored by the Toji Cultural Foundation, the Park Kyung-ri Literary Award Committee and the Dong-A Ilbo. Robinson is visiting Korea to attend the award ceremony to be held at 4:00 p.m. Saturday in Wonju, Gangwon Province.

Robinson is acclaimed as one of representative U.S. writers for her fictions "Housekeeping" (1980), "Gilead" (2004) and "Home" (2008). She also became the talk of the town after U.S. President Barack Obama told a TV talk show that he enjoyed her works.

"After winning the award, I had a chance to read the English translation of `Toji`," she said, praising the book for its insight into history. She also said that the impression she had on "Toji" was similar to that of French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac and that she plans to introduce Park`s literary works at a seminar she is scheduled to attend in November.

"Gilead" is an epistolary novel, in which Congregationalist minister John Ames narrates to his young son. The title is also the name of a village in the State of Iowa. The author has released a series of novels depicting the lives of first settlers in the Midwest against the backdrop of Gilead, which is often referred to by the Bible as a place of healing and rebirth.

She said that the Midwest is where many Protestants from Europe who were influenced by French theologian and Protestant reformer John Calvin and that she had planned to write novels with the region as the background after moving to Iowa to teach at the University of Iowa and studying the lives of the first settlers.

"Lila," her fourth novel which she finished recently, has also Gilead as the background, featuring Lila, the wife of pastor Ames, as the protagonist. She said that the time is about 30 years before the novel "Gilead." She noted that she tries to deal with women a lot in her work partly because of her discontent about the stereotypes of women in Hollywood films and partly because of my wish to seek a balance between masculinity and femininity.

Her works are acclaimed for being written in so highly refined sentences that they are called "poetic prose." Doris Lessing, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007, said of Robinson`s works, "I found myself reading slowly, than more slowly--this is not a novel to be hurried through, for every sentence is a delight."

How does the author accept such evaluations? Robinson said it is probably because she spends plenty of time revising words or sentences in her novels over and over again until she is satisfied.

She also expressed her pleasure when she heard the news that the Korean translations of "Housekeeping" and "Gilead" that had gone out of print will be republished to mark her winning the Park Kyung-ri award. "The books were so prettily made. I expect the award to get Korean readers to find her works more interesting when they read them," she said.

Robinson will leave Korea on September 30 after giving a literary lecture at Yonsei University in Seoul on the previous day.