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EspañolBARBARA KINGSOLVER
'Barbara Kingsolver' (born April 8, 1955) is an American fiction writer. She has written several novels, poems, short stories, and essays, and established the Bellwether Prize for "literature of social change."
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." [1] 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 the late 1970s, Kingsolver lived in a number of places, including Greece, France, and Tucson, Arizona, working variously as an archaeological digger, copy editor, housecleaner, biological researcher and translator. She earned a Master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. She then took a job as a science writer for the university. The science writing led to some freelance feature writing and journalism. 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 were ''Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983'' (non-fiction); a short story collection, ''Homeland and Other Stories'' (1989); the novels ''Animal Dreams'' (1990), ''Pigs in Heaven'' (1993), ''The Poisonwood Bible'' (1998) and ''Prodigal Summer'' (2000); a poetry collection, ''Another America'' (1992); the essay collections ''High Tide in Tucson''(1995) and ''Small Wonder: Essays'' (2002) ''Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands,'' prose poetry with the photographs of Annie Griffiths Belt; and "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007). ''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.
In 1994, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University.
Barbara Kingsolver lives with her husband Steven Hopp and their two daughters, Camille and Lily, on a farm in Southwest Virginia.
Community, economic injustice and cultural difference inform the themes of Kingsolver's work. In ''The Bean Trees'', the main character meets a family of Guatemalan immigrants who were forced to leave their daughter behind to escape torture and death in their home country. In ''The Poisonwood Bible'', Kingsolver examined the role of the United States and other political powers in colonial and post-colonial Africa. She lived in the Congo briefly as a child and has stated in interviews how this gave her “a real extreme look at what it’s like to be a minority.” The sequel to "The Bean Trees", her 1993 novel ''Pigs in Heaven'' examines the conflicts between individual and community rights, through a story about a Cherokee child adopted out of her tribe.
As a dedicated campaigner for the environment and feminist causes, Kingsolver's novels "Animal Dreams" and "Prodigal Summer" explore ecofeminist themes.
Kingsolver has said, "If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread." [2]
★ ''The Bean Trees'', 1988, 1st UK edition 1989, Limited edition (200) 1992
★ ''Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983'', 1989
★ ''Homeland and Other Stories'', 1989
★ ''Animal Dreams'', 1990
★ ''Another America'', 1992
★ ''Pigs in Heaven'', 1993
★ ''High Tide in Tucson'', 1995, also: Limitied edition (150)1995
★ ''The Poisonwood Bible'', 1998
★ ''Prodigal Summer'', 2000
★ ''Small Wonder: Essays'', 2002
★ ''Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands'', 2002 (with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt)
★ ''Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'' 2007, (with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver)
Kingsolver's recent nonfiction book, ''Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'', explores the modern food industry via a narrative of a year in which the author and her family attempted to eat only food they grew themselves or purchased from nearby farms. It was published in May 2007 by HarperCollins. You can read an excerpt [3] in the May/June 2007 issue of Mother Jones magazine. You can listen to Kingsolver and her husband discuss her book[4] at an hour-long presentation at the bookstore Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA on May 16, 2007.
Her next novel "Notes to a Future Historian" is due to be published in October 2007.
★ About Barbara: Biography
★ Official website
★ The Patience of a Saint. National Geographic, 2000.
★ 1990 Audio Interview with Barbara Kingsolver by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio
★ Faber and Faber reading guide for 'The Poisonwood Bible'
★ 1994 Commencement Address at DePauw University - MP3
★ Transcript of Interview with Living on Earth, May 4th, 2007. Also available in MP3.
★ Official page of "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"
| Contents |
| Biography |
| Literary themes |
| Books |
| References |
| External links |
Biography
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." [1] 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 the late 1970s, Kingsolver lived in a number of places, including Greece, France, and Tucson, Arizona, working variously as an archaeological digger, copy editor, housecleaner, biological researcher and translator. She earned a Master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona. She then took a job as a science writer for the university. The science writing led to some freelance feature writing and journalism. 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 were ''Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983'' (non-fiction); a short story collection, ''Homeland and Other Stories'' (1989); the novels ''Animal Dreams'' (1990), ''Pigs in Heaven'' (1993), ''The Poisonwood Bible'' (1998) and ''Prodigal Summer'' (2000); a poetry collection, ''Another America'' (1992); the essay collections ''High Tide in Tucson''(1995) and ''Small Wonder: Essays'' (2002) ''Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands,'' prose poetry with the photographs of Annie Griffiths Belt; and "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007). ''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.
In 1994, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University.
Barbara Kingsolver lives with her husband Steven Hopp and their two daughters, Camille and Lily, on a farm in Southwest Virginia.
Literary themes
Community, economic injustice and cultural difference inform the themes of Kingsolver's work. In ''The Bean Trees'', the main character meets a family of Guatemalan immigrants who were forced to leave their daughter behind to escape torture and death in their home country. In ''The Poisonwood Bible'', Kingsolver examined the role of the United States and other political powers in colonial and post-colonial Africa. She lived in the Congo briefly as a child and has stated in interviews how this gave her “a real extreme look at what it’s like to be a minority.” The sequel to "The Bean Trees", her 1993 novel ''Pigs in Heaven'' examines the conflicts between individual and community rights, through a story about a Cherokee child adopted out of her tribe.
As a dedicated campaigner for the environment and feminist causes, Kingsolver's novels "Animal Dreams" and "Prodigal Summer" explore ecofeminist themes.
Kingsolver has said, "If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread." [2]
Books
★ ''The Bean Trees'', 1988, 1st UK edition 1989, Limited edition (200) 1992
★ ''Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983'', 1989
★ ''Homeland and Other Stories'', 1989
★ ''Animal Dreams'', 1990
★ ''Another America'', 1992
★ ''Pigs in Heaven'', 1993
★ ''High Tide in Tucson'', 1995, also: Limitied edition (150)1995
★ ''The Poisonwood Bible'', 1998
★ ''Prodigal Summer'', 2000
★ ''Small Wonder: Essays'', 2002
★ ''Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands'', 2002 (with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt)
★ ''Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'' 2007, (with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver)
Kingsolver's recent nonfiction book, ''Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'', explores the modern food industry via a narrative of a year in which the author and her family attempted to eat only food they grew themselves or purchased from nearby farms. It was published in May 2007 by HarperCollins. You can read an excerpt [3] in the May/June 2007 issue of Mother Jones magazine. You can listen to Kingsolver and her husband discuss her book[4] at an hour-long presentation at the bookstore Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA on May 16, 2007.
Her next novel "Notes to a Future Historian" is due to be published in October 2007.
References
★ About Barbara: Biography
External links
★ Official website
★ The Patience of a Saint. National Geographic, 2000.
★ 1990 Audio Interview with Barbara Kingsolver by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio
★ Faber and Faber reading guide for 'The Poisonwood Bible'
★ 1994 Commencement Address at DePauw University - MP3
★ Transcript of Interview with Living on Earth, May 4th, 2007. Also available in MP3.
★ Official page of "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"
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