In 1974 Pilgrim at Tinker Creek earned Annie Dillard the distinction of being the youngest person (at age thirty-one) ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. Combining theological, scientific, and literary inquiry, the book offers insight into the everyday world. As national and international conflicts (the Watergate break-in and the Vietnam War) prompted controversy in America, Dillard, secluded in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia, looked to the earth and its creator for clues about how to live a fully human existence.
Naturalism in Virginia. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek takes place in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia, in the southeast Appalachians along a range known as the Blue Ridge Mountains. This geographical area is home to Virginia's highest peaks, which are also some of the most ancient mountains in the world, and it holds some of the most beautiful natural scenery in America. Located in the valley is Tinker Creek, on the banks of which Annie Dillard wrote her essay in wilderness areas so remarkable that two major conservation and recreation projects were instituted there. The area was opened up after World War II by the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway, a 575-mile recreational highway that creeps along the tops of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
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