The Poisonwood Bible (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780060175405)

"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

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
ISBN-10: 0060175400
ISBN-13: 9780060175405
Publisher: Harper
Language: English
Published: 10/07/1998
Pages: 560
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.87lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.46w x 1.74d

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

Award: PEN/Faulkner Award - Nominee

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 08/10/1998 pg. 366
Library Journal 09/01/1998 pg. 214
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/1998 pg. 1219
New York Times 10/18/1998 pg. 7
New York Times 12/06/1998 pg. 8
Publishers Weekly Best Books 01/01/1998 pg. 41
Best of Book Sense/First 5 Yrs 04/01/2004 pg. 1
Library Journal 07/01/1998
Foreword 01/01/2005 pg. 1
Entertainment Weekly 06/27/2008 pg. 107
People Weekly 11/09/2009 pg. 53
Entertainment Weekly 07/05/2013 pg. 103
Entertainment Weekly 08/22/2014 pg. 113