The Poisonwood Bible

barbara kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible 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. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

Genres fictionhistorical fictionafricabook clubclassicsliterary fictionhistoricalliteraturenovelsadult fiction

546 pages, Paperback

First published September 24,1998

Literary awards

pulitzer prize, orange prize, book sense book of the year award, pen/faulkner award for fiction, independent publisher book award (ippy), exclusive books boeke prize, puddly award, dublin literary award,

Places

bethlehem georgia, kilanga, sanderling island georgia, leopoldville,

This edition

Format: 546 pages, Paperback
Published: May 31, 2005 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ISBN: 9780060786502
ASIN: 0060786507
Language: English

Characters More characters

Orleanna Price

NarratorIs mother and daughter at different time periods in the storySister of Ruth May, Adah & RachelDaughter of Leah & Nathan PriceGrand Daughter of Dr Bud Wharton...
Ruth May Price

Sister of Orleanna, Adah & Rachel Daughter of Leah & Nathan PriceGrand Daughter of Dr Bud Wharton...
Rachel Rebeccah Price

Sister of Ruth May, Adah & OrleannaDaughter of Leah & Nathan PriceGrand Daughter of Dr Bud Wharton...
Leah Price

Mother of Orleanna, Rachel, Adah & Ruth MayWife of Nathan PriceDaughter of Dr Bud Wharton...
Nathan Price

Father of Orleanna, Rachel, Adah & Ruth MayHusband of Leah PriceSon-in-Law of Dr Bud Wharton...
Dr Bud Wharton

Grandfather of Orleanna, Rachel, Adah & Ruth MayFather-in-law of Nathan PriceFather of Leah Price...

About the author

barbara kingsolver

Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011 and the National Humanities Medal. After winning for The Lacuna in 2010 and Demon Copperhead in 2023, Kingsolver became the first author to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice. Since 1993, each one of her book titles have been on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Kingsolver was raised in rural Kentucky, lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood, and she currently lives in Appalachia. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. In 2000, the politically progressive Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change".