The Poisonwood Bible -- Barbara Kingsolver, Paperback

"A powerful new epic . . . 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

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.

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. 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.

Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 07/05/2005
Pages: 576
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.20w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780060786502

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 6.6
Point Value: 29
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 35204 / Poisonwood Bible


Review Citation(s):
Commonweal 06/17/2005 pg. 25
Ingram Advance 07/01/2005 pg. 49