Home comforts for Robinson as novel scoops Orange award

AMERICAN author Marilynne Robinson won the 14th Orange Prize for Fiction last night for her novel Home.

The work is the writer’s third novel in nearly 30 years. She beat a shortlist including Irish writer Deirdre Madden to the award. Madden was chosen for her seventh novel, Molly Fox’s Birthday, and was the only author shortlisted previously, in 1997.

The Orange prize celebrates fiction writing of women from around the world. Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2004 for Gilead, wins the £30,000 (€34,500) prize and the “Bessie” bronze figurine.