Annie Dillard
From Philosopedia
Dillard, Annie (30 April 1945 - )
Dillard, an author who won the Pulitzer prize for general non-fiction in 1974, has written for Harper’s and for various newspapers. A member of the Thoreau Society, she has written poetry such as Tickets for a Prayer Wheel (1974) and Mornings Like This (1995). Her nonfiction books include Holy the Firm (1978), The Writing Life (1989), and For the Time Being (1999). In the latter work, she poses the old question as to why, if God exists, wickedness is permitted. She also notes that of eighty billion galaxies, each harbors at least one hundred billion suns and that every 110 hours a million more humans arrive on the planet than die into the planet.
Dillard has written a memoir, An American Childhood (1987) and a novel, The Living (1992). In Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974), she included the following:
- I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, “If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?” “No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.” “Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”
In An American Childhood (1987), Dillard declares,
- By dipping us children in the Bible so often, they hoped, I think, to give our lives a serious tint, and to provide us with quaintly magnificent snatches of prayer to produce as charms while, say, being mugged for our cash or jewels.
Dillard has been a writer-in-residence at Wesleyan University, where she also teaches. In 1999 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Some critics have noted that, as to why she thinks God permits suffering, she leans on Augustine and Aquinas. Asked specifically if any religious or philosophic label fits into her outlook, Dillard touched all bases in a letter to Warren Allen Smith:
- I haven’t the foggiest idea. Is there such a thing as a freethinking Catholic? Of course I’m also an existentialist and to some extent a Unitarian, ditto Hasid, though the Hasids would deny it. Strongly! Also, I’m a neo-Platonist. And, of course, a fervent admirer of the sciences.
