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 … epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.
The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo’s fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband’s part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father’s intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.
Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver’s previous work, and extends this beloved writer’s vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.
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Wonderfully written; provocative!
Just loved this story and the perspective of how it was told from each girl’s point of view. Beautiful, tragic – an epic.
This is a great book to read about a day in the life of a family that moves to a remote area of Africa due to the patriarch of the family uprooting his wife and four daughters to spread the good word in a non Christian environment. He couldn’t have picked a worse time as this tiny nation is in political turmoil and people are turning against …
A weaving of family and their religion that truly takes you on an amazing journey. Can’t stop reading. Excellent. Jacqueline
One of my all-time favorites.
This is her best book ever. I’ve read all her books and this is my favorite.
This is one of the best books that I have ever read. I didn’t want it to end.
Beautiful characters whose individual voices shine
Love the books Barbara Kingsolver has written! My daughter and I read them and discuss them! There are always plants and people and stories of the characters woven together!
Just could not get into this book. Quit reading it.
Love the first half but the second failed for me.
One of my very favorite books
This book was a glimpse very few of us ever have since very few of us live with missionaries is Africa. It reflected lives which were not what missionary organizations would be advertising.
Every book I have read by Barbara Kingsolver is worthy of high praise. Her characters are developed so well and I want to make them part of y life. She has a great ability to develop imaginative and realistic story lines. I always learn something about life from her books.
I loved this book! My husband enjoyed it, too.
One of my all-time favorite books. Well-written, funny, poignant, interesting
I know a lot of people really love this book but I’m not one of them. Barbara Kingsolver writes beautiful sentences. Some are so beautiful that I would stop to admire them. Read them aloud and feel them roll around in my brain and off my tongue. There were so many beautiful sentences that it became distracting to the book. Isn’t it sad that a …
I am a big Barbara Kingsolver fan, but this one was not her best. It was gripping in the beginning, but got slow somewhere in the middle. It is still a good read
I like how the book was written from the perspective of the different family members. Felt like I was there living this experience with this family. Big fan of Barbara Kingsolver.
I thought the characters interesting. What an interesting story.