Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist best known for her novels Housekeeping and Gilead .

Robinson was born and grew up in Sandpoint, Idaho. Her brother is the art historian David Summers, who dedicated his book Vision, Reflection, and Desire in Western Painting to her. She did her undergraduate work at Pembroke College, the former womens college at Brown University, receiving her B.A., magna cum laude in 1966, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington in 1977.

Source: Wikipedia