Read more, speak less

Marilynne Robinson, Obama’s favourite contemporary novelist, says we all have a duty to raise our intellectual game

As a child Marilynne Robinson was enthralled by writing poetry. As an adult, she says, it has never been quite the same. ‘During a thunderstorm or something like that I would write some crazy poem and then hide it. It was wonderful.’ She hid the poetry under her mattress. ‘My mother would come in to change the sheets and all this poetry would fly out,’ she recalls. ‘She would say: “Why are you hiding your poetry?” I’ve never known why. But I’m still like that. I’m pretty secretive about anything I write.’

She says she’s two-thirds of the way through her fourth novel. When I ask more about it, she laughs and almost puts her head in her hands. ‘I can’t talk about it. I can’t… For some reason or another that just destroys fiction when you talk about it prematurely, at least for me.