The Poisonwood Bible
- Themes
- Religion and belief, Race and politics, Postcolonial transformation
- Pacing
- Mixed
Who it’s for
- Readers interested in postcolonial literature and its historical contexts
- Readers drawn to family stories spanning decades
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New York Times Bestseller • An Oprah Book Club Pick
“Powerful . . . [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel established Barbara Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.
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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.
Publisher details
Publisher categories
- Action & Adventure
- The Classics
- Family Sagas
- Historical Fiction
Show all 8 publisher categories
- Literary Fiction
- Psychological Fiction
- Coming-of-Age
- Women's Fiction
- Authors
- Barbara Kingsolver
- Publisher
- HarperCollins
- Published
- October 7, 1998
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Action & Adventure