The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
This is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. Nathan Price is a fiery, devout evangelical Baptist preacher, come to spread the Word in a remote village. To say that he, together with the wife and four daughters he has brought with him, have little idea of what they have let themselves in for is an understatement.
The first part of The Poisonwood Bible is centred on Nathan's stubborn, bullying character, and how this affects both his family and the local community. Gradually, as political instability in the region grows, so too does local antipathy to Nathan and events converge with tragic consequences. The second part of the novel follows the fortunes of each member of the family over the next 30 years.
Richly drawn, lyrical and morally engaging, The Poisonwood Bible is an absorbing read that tells the story from the perspective of, and in the voices of, the four sisters.
A big, ambitious, funny and moving book. Shortlisted for the 1999 Orange Prize.
Publisher: Faber and Faber
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Barbara Kingsolver
American novelist known for her anti-establishment stance, and the winner of the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction, with The Lacuna...
Barbara Kingsolver was born in Annapolis, Maryland but was raised near Carlisle, Kentucky, 'in the middle of an alfalfa field... between the opulent horse farms and the impoverished coal fields.' Her parents were medical and public-health workers who briefly embarked on an expedition to the Congo when Kingsolver was a child. Kingsolver describes her childhood as a rather solitary one, and used the time she spent by herself to stimulate an 'elaborate life of the mind.'
Kingsolver attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana on a music scholarship, studying classical piano. Eventually, however, she changed her major to biology.In 1986, she won an Arizona Press Club award for outstanding feature writing. Her first novel, The Bean Trees, was published in 1988.
Her subsequent books include The Poisonwood Bible (1998) and Prodigal Summer (2000); a poetry collection, Another America (1992) and the essay collections High Tide in Tucson (1995) and Small Wonder: Essays (2002). The Poisonwood Bible (1998) was a bestseller that won the National Book Prize of South Africa, made finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and PEN/Faulkner award, and was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection. In 2000, Barbara was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Bill Clinton.
She lives with her husband Steven Hopp and their two daughters, Camille and Lily, on a farm in Southwest Virginia. Her book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle describes their first year on the farm and their quest for self-sufficiency.
www.kingsolver.com
Barbara Kingsolver
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