Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a 1974 nonfiction narrative book by American author Annie Dillard. Told from a first-person point of view, the book details an unnamed narrator’s explorations near her home. The title refers to Tinker Creek, which is outside Roanoke in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction.
About Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in brief
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a 1974 nonfiction narrative book by American author Annie Dillard. Told from a first-person point of view, the book details an unnamed narrator’s explorations near her home, and various contemplations on nature and life. The title refers to Tinker Creek, which is outside Roanoke in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction, and in 1998 it was included in Modern Library’s list of 100 Best Nonfiction Books. The book is analogous in design and genre to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, the subject of Dillard’s master’s thesis at Hollins College. Critics often compare Dillard to authors from the Transcendentalist movement; Edward Abbey in particular deemed her Thoreaux’s \”true heir\”. In a nod to his influence, Dillard mentions within the text that she named her goldfish Ellery Channing, after one of Thoreax’s closest friends. It was published by Harper’s Magazine Press shortly after Dillard’s first book, a volume of poetry titled Tickets for a Prayer Wheel. Dillard wrote the first half of Pilgrim at her home in spring 1973, and the remaining half the following summer in a study carrel that overlooked a tar-and-gravel roof at the Hollin’s College library. When she first began writing the book, she would only dedicate one or two hours a day to the task. By the last two months, however, she was writing nearly 1516 hours per day. The author has described it as a \”book of theology\”, and she rejects the label of nature writer.
It is also noted for its study of theodicy and the inherent cruelty of the natural world. It has been anthologized separately in magazines and other publications, including The Atlantic, The Living Wilderness, The Atlantic Magazine, and The Living Mountains of the Atlantic. The first chapter of Pilgrim was dedicated to her husband, Larry Freundlich, who was the editor of Harper’s magazine at the time of its publication. Previous to publication, previous chapters of the book had appeared in publications such as The Atlantic and The living mountains of theAtlantic. In 1998, the author said that she would like to see the book’s first chapter expanded to make clear, and to state, what it was that it was up to, but that she first dismissed the suggestion as a suggestion that Dillard dismissed, but would later admit it was good advice. She would later state that Richard Henry Wilde Dillard, whom she married in 1965, had taught her everything she knew about writing. After graduating in 1968, she continued to live in Virginia, where she wrote full-time. At first she concentrated solely on poetry, which she had written and published when she was an undergraduate. She began keeping a journal in 1970, in which she recorded her daily walks around Tinker Creek. Her journals would eventually consist of 20 volumes. In 1971, after suffering from a serious bout of pneumonia, she decided to write a full-length book dedicated to nature writings.
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