Author
Barbara Kingsolver
Birth Date
April 8, 1955
(71 Years)
Associated Country
United States
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist, and poet known for her socially engaged fiction that often explores themes of family, environmentalism, social justice, and rural life. Raised in Kentucky and later living in various parts of the United States and abroad, she studied biology at DePauw University before pursuing a career in writing. Her scientific background frequently informs the ecological and ethical concerns in her work.
Kingsolver gained widespread recognition with novels such as The Bean Trees (1988) and Pigs in Heaven (1993), which established her reputation for character-driven storytelling rooted in real-world issues. Her later works include The Poisonwood Bible (1998), a bestselling novel set in post-colonial Congo, and Demon Copperhead (2022), a contemporary reimagining of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield set in Appalachia. The latter won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023.
In addition to fiction, Kingsolver has written essays and nonfiction works that reflect her interest in sustainability, agriculture, and community life. Her writing is known for its moral clarity, rich characterization, and commitment to examining the connections between people, place, and the natural world.
Kingsolver gained widespread recognition with novels such as The Bean Trees (1988) and Pigs in Heaven (1993), which established her reputation for character-driven storytelling rooted in real-world issues. Her later works include The Poisonwood Bible (1998), a bestselling novel set in post-colonial Congo, and Demon Copperhead (2022), a contemporary reimagining of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield set in Appalachia. The latter won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2023.
In addition to fiction, Kingsolver has written essays and nonfiction works that reflect her interest in sustainability, agriculture, and community life. Her writing is known for its moral clarity, rich characterization, and commitment to examining the connections between people, place, and the natural world.
Books
Partita 2026
Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier,...
Demon Copperhead 2022
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and...
Spreading her memorable characters over landscapes ranging from Northern California to the hills of eastern Kentucky and the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, Kingsolver tells stories of hope, momentary...
Unsheltered 2019
How could two hardworking people do everything right in life, a woman asks, and end up destitute? Willa Knox and her husband followed all the rules as responsible parents and professionals, and have...
Flight Behavior 2013
Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life...
The Bean Trees 2013
The Bean Trees is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a three-year-old...
Animal Dreams 2013
"Animals dream about the things they do in the daytime just like people do. If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life." So says Loyd Peregrina, a handsome Apache trainman and...
Pigs in Heaven 2013
When six-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam, her insistence on what she has seen and her mother's belief in her lead to a man's dramatic rescue. But Turtle's moment of...
Prodigal Summer 2013
Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel's intriguing protagonists—a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer's wife marooned far...
The Poisonwood Bible 2012
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...
The Lacuna 2009
Harrison William Shepherd grows up between Mexico and the United States, never fully belonging to either world. As a young man in Mexico, he becomes involved with prominent figures such as artists...
Small Wonder 2003
High Tide in Tucson 1996
With the eyes of a scientist and the vision of a poet, Kingsolver writes about notions as diverse as modern motherhood, the history of private property, and the suspended citizenship of humans in the...