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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One of my favorites!
This is one of the best books I have ever read. It’s a life changing, new world view type of book.
I have read this book several times and gave a book report to our church women’s group. It’s a book that won’t leave you alone, it keeps me thinking about the characters. I absolutely recommend this book.
Depressing and disturbing and angry. Not how I want to spend my time.
This book kept me alert, I kept thinking something terrible was going to happen. How she blindly followed her husband with her children was interesting. I read this many years ago so I don’t remember all of the details, but I loved this book.
Kingsolver on Africa and missionaries and their families. If Kingsolver can’t make you rethink the world, maybe no one can, but she does it so painlessly and entertainingly. She makes me wish she lived next door and could be my good friend.
Great book for a bookclub
Good book a very long read
A heartbreaking family drama seeped in both mysticism and religion, while wrapping the reader in the ugliness that was colonialism and post-colonialism. The selfish brutishness of the father/preacher and his domination over his wive and daughters also brings very much into play the subservience expected of women not only in the time period …
One of my favorite books ever! I literally could not put it down and laid on the couch for 3 days reading it.
Loved this book. A wonderful saga of a family thrown into a foreign, exotic culture.
One of my all time favorites!
One of best books I ever read
An all time favorite!
Great book, but went on 100 pages too long. Lost its punch
This book is amazing. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for months afterward.
I read this year’s ago and it must have been excellent because I wouldn’t have remembered it otherwise.
Loved this book from one of my favorite authors!
Good literature- not an easy read.
Most women who have read this think it is among the best books they’ve read. I disagree, although I thoroughly enjoyed all the other Kingsolver books I’ve read. I just couldn’t get into it, but I read it cover to cover. I recommend it, however, to others. It just wasn’t for me.