Another chance to hear Roy Jenkins interview with one of America’s most distinguished authors. Marilynne Robinson was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Gilead, the first of a trilogy of books based around the family of an elderly Congregationalist minister in a fictional town in Iowa. Numerous honours have followed, among them the National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama for her 'grace and intelligence in writing.' That was more than a formality on his part: her writings, he said, 'have fundamentally changed me...I think for the better' And before he left office, the president chose to interview her for the New York Review of Books. Her non-fiction work includes regular collections of essays in which she explores issues of science and religion, politics and culture - all in the light of her personal commitment to a distinctively Calvinist understanding of Christian faith. The British commentator Brian Appleyard is one of her many admirers: 'I'm not saying you're actually dead if you haven't read Marilynne Robinson,' he wrote, 'but I honestly couldn't say you're fully alive."