The Poisonwood BibleRecommendations

The Poisonwood Bible is a story narrated by Nathan Price's wife and four daughters about how he and his family moved to the Belgian Congo in 1959 to start a mission. They bring everything they think they'll need from home, only to discover that everything, from garden seeds to Scripture, has been disastrously changed on African soil. What follows is a gripping story about one family's sad demise and extraordinary rebirth in postcolonial Africa over the course of three decades.

The novel is set against one of the twentieth century's most dramatic political sagas: the Congo's struggle for independence from Belgium, the assassination of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that strips the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelical husband's role in the Western attack on Africa against this backdrop, a tale tinged with her own losses and unanswered doubts about her own guilt. Her four kids, Rachel, a self-centered adolescent; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a foresighted five-year-old, alternately narrate the story. These acutely observant daughters, who come in the Congo with racial prejudices formed in 1950s Georgia, will be influenced in unexpected ways by their father's irreconcilable mission, as well as by Africa itself. In the end, everybody must forge her own route to redemption. Their connected lives form a gripping examination of moral risk and personal accountability.

The Poisonwood Bible contains all that has characterized Barbara Kingsolver's past work, and takes this acclaimed writer's vision to a whole new level, dancing between the dark humor of human faults and the stunning potential of human hope. This enormous novel established Kingsolver as one of the most serious and daring of modern writers, standing among classic works of postcolonial literature.