Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver 1955-, American writer, b. Annapolis, Md.; grad. DePauw Univ. (B.S., 1977), Univ. of Arizona (M.S.). She studied biology and ecology and was a science writer before completing The Bean Trees (1988), a novel about a young woman who leaves Kentucky for Arizona, where she lives with a young Cherokee girl. Kingsolver's Arizona novels also include Animal Dreams (1990) and Pigs in Heaven (1993), a sequel to her first book. These works feature carefully drawn heroines, often single mothers, struggling with their roles as individuals and members of families and communities. The Poisonwood Bible (1998) is a sprawling colonial morality tale told through the saga of a missionary family in the Belgian Congo. Her fifth novel, Prodigal Summer (2000), is set in rural Appalachia. Kingsolver has also written short stories, bilingual poetry, essays, and a study of an Arizona mine strike (1989). In 2004 Kingsolver moved to a farm in SW Virginia; her Animal, Vegetable, Mineral (2007) recounts a year during which her family ate only what they grew themselves or bought from local sources.

Bibliography: See M. J. DeMarr, Barbara Kingsolver: A Critical Companion (1999).