The Poisonwood Bible (1998)

by Barbara Kingsolver

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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The drama of a U.S. missionary family in Africa during a war of decolonization. At its center is Nathan Price, a self-righteous Baptist minister who establishes a mission in a village in 1959 Belgian Congo. The resulting clash of cultures is seen through the eyes of his wife and his four daughters.

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paulkid: Race relations on different continents, told from multiple female perspectives.
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jlelliott: Each tells the story of Christian missionaries in Africa, one from the perspective of the missionaries, one from the perspective of the local people targeted for "salvation".
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lucyknows: You could use the theme of colonialism to pair The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver with Passage to India by E. M. Forster.
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The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (Bcteagirl)
Bcteagirl: The book has a similar familial tone and is also told from the point of view of young girls growing up in a difficult situation. I had been looking for a book with a similar writing style and was happy to find this one. If you liked The Book of Negroes I recommend The Poisonwood Bible and vice versa.… (more)
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Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart by Tim Butcher (CatherineRM)
CatherineRM: I love both these books and they nicely juxtapose each other with their Congo total immersion albeit one fictional and one factual. Tim Butcher traces the Congo River from its source through the dense equatorial land that the protagonist of the Kingsolver book occupied with his suffering family. Both books made a lasting impression on me and I have great time for Africa as I lived in Tanzania - close to Congo geographically for most of the time - and it has a big place in my heart. Read both books and be enriched!… (more)
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sweetbug: Similar themes of conflict between two cultures, Westerners living and working in an exotic and dangerous land, and parents / surrogate parents protecting (or not) their children from harm.
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The Civilized World by Susi Wyss (ShortStoryLover)
ShortStoryLover: Although it's much shorter than Poisonwood, The Civilized World also has multiple points of view from female perspectives and the chapters are almost all set in various parts of present-day Africa.
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wandergirl881: Well researched historical fiction

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▾Member reviews

English (483) Dutch (3) Spanish (2) Catalan (2) French (1) All languages (491)

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Showing 1-5 of 483 (next | show all)

I adore Barbara Kingsolvers' works - all of them; but this is not my favorite. It's between The Lacuna, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle..... (

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schoenbc70 | Sep 2, 2023 |

This is an exceptionally good novel. The story of a missionary and his family who travel from backwoods Georgia to the even more primitive and God-forsaken Belgian Congo has echoes of Joseph Conrad but they are unobtrusive and serve to highlight the book's originality. The novel is told in chapters, with each in the voice of either the Mother, Orleana, or one of the four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May. The father, Nathan Price, is the most Conradian character who bears a heavy cross of guilt from his experience as the lone survivor of a massacre that wiped out his battalion. The story moves across the ocean a few times and within Africa but it never loses its momentum or focus. Biblical references abound to good effect. The characters are extremely well-drawn and voiced. This This 614 page novel, covering four decades, is a long journey, but it is not without humor and the writing climbs to brilliant heights in several chapters. The frequent changes in narrator keeps the energy high. Looking forward to reading more Kingsolver. A native of Appalachia, she might have had her region in mind for some of this story. (

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brook11trout | Aug 27, 2023 |

I've read this book twice and it remains on my top ten list. Kingsolver reveals to story through the distinct voices of five sisters in a way that is mesmerizing. (

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rebwaring | Aug 14, 2023 |

The writing made the characters so real to me that I just wanted to shout at them and shake them into seeing what the hell was really going on. This book made me furious, and I highly recommend it to all. (

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blueskygreentrees | Jul 30, 2023 |

Interesting and intense at the start. Lingered a little long for me at the end (

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vdt_melbourne | Jul 20, 2023 |

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▾Published reviews

4 reviews

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thingScore 88

Kingsolver once wrote that ""The point [of portraying other cultures] is not to emulate other lives, or usurp their wardrobes. The point is to find sense.'' Her effort to make sense of the Congo's tragic struggle for independence is fully realized, richly embroidered, triumphant.

added by Shortride | editNewsweek (Nov 9, 1998)

A writer who casts a preacher as a fool and a villain had best not be preachy. Kingsolver manages not to be, in part because she is a gifted magician of words--her sleight-of-phrase easily distracting a reader who might be on the point of rebellion. Her novel is both powerful and quite simple. It is also angrier and more direct than her earlier books.

added by Shortride | editTime, John Skow (Nov 9, 1998)

The Congo permeates ''The Poisonwood Bible,'' and yet this is a novel that is just as much about America, a portrait, in absentia, of the nation that sent the Prices to save the souls of a people for whom it felt only contempt, people who already, in the words of a more experienced missionary, ''have a world of God's grace in their lives, along with a dose of hardship that can kill a person entirely.''

added by Shortride | editThe New York Times Book Review, Verlyn Klinkenborg (Oct 18, 1998)

Although ''The Poisonwood Bible'' takes place in the former Belgian Congo and begins in 1959 and ends in the 1990's, Barbara Kingsolver's powerful new book is actually an old-fashioned 19th-century novel, a Hawthornian tale of sin and redemption and the ''dark necessity'' of history.

added by jlelliott | editThe New York Times, Michiko Kakutani (Oct 16, 1998)

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (3 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Kingsolver, Barbara	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Ahokas, Juha	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Alou, Damián	Traductor	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Ballester, Aurora	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Beard, Elliott	Designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Belleteste, Guillemette	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Frank-Strauss, Anne R.	—	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Klinge, Bente	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Metz, Julie	Cover designer	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Meyer, Han	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Mulder, Arjen	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Post, Maaike	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Robertson, Dean	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Spear, Geoff	Cover photo	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Publisher Series

Harper Perennial Modern Classics

Littérature étrangère, Rivages

Littérature étrangère, Rivages poche (331)

Is contained in

The Bean Trees | Pigs in Heaven | The Poisonwood Bible | Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Prodigal Summer | Small Wonder | The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver: Complete Fiction II by Barbara Kingsolver

Has as a reference guide/companion

Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) by Linda Wagner-Martin

Has as a study

The Poisonwood Bible (Reader's Companion) by Barbara Fisher

Has as a student's study guide

A Study Guide for Barbara Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible" by Ira Mark Milne

CliffsNotes on Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible by Kris Fulkerson

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

BBC's Big Read (Best loved novel, No 125 – 2003)

Dublin Literary Award (Longlist – 2000)

Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (Winner – 2000)

Independent Publisher Book Awards (Audiobook Fiction, Unabridged – 1999)

Indies Choice Book Award (Winner – Adult – 2000)

PEN/Faulkner Award (Finalist – 1999)

Pulitzer Prize (Finalist – Fiction – 1999)

Women's Prize for Fiction (Shortlist – 1999)

Distinctions

Amazon.com Best Books (2000)

New York Times Best Books of the Year (1998)

New York Times bestseller (Fiction – 1998)

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Oprah's Book Club selection (1999)

Whitcoulls Top 100 Books (23 – 2008)

Whitcoulls Top 100 Books (44 – 2010)

Notable Lists

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

The Poisonwood Bible

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1998 (1e édition originale américaine, Harper Collins, New York)

1999-08-20 (1e traduction et édition française, Littérature étrangère, Payot et Rivages)

2001-03-01 (Réédition française, Poche, Littérature étrangère, Rivages)

2014-09-24 (Réédition française, Poche, Littérature étrangère, Rivages)

People/Characters

Important places

Abomey, Benin

Africa

Angola

Atlanta, Georgia, USA (Emory Hospital | Emory University)

Bandundu, Congo (Banningville)

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

Oprah's Book Club selection (1999)

BBC's Big Read (Best loved novel, 2003, No 125)

Book Sense Book of the Year (2000.4 | Adult Winner, 2000)

Pulitzer Prize finalist (1999.1 | Fiction, 1999)

New York Times Best Books of the Year (1998)

(show all 25 items)

Epigraph

Dedication

For Frances

First words

Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened.

Quotations

I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence. I can understand a wrathful God who'd just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can understand a tender, unprejudiced Jesus. But I could never quite figure the two of them living in the same house.

It is true that I do not speak as well as I can think. But that is true of most people, as nearly as I can tell.

While my husband's intentions crystallized as rock salt, and while I preoccupied myself with private survival, the Congo breathed behind the curtain of forest, preparing to roll over us like a river.

Overpopulation has deforested 3/4 of Africa, yielding drought, famine, and the probable extinction of all animals most beloved by children and zoos.... Africa has a thousand ways of cleaning itself. Driver ants, Ebola virus, AIDS, all these are brooms devised by nature to sweep a small clearing very well.

Back home we have the most glorious garden each and every summer, so it's only natural that my father thought to bring over seeds in his pockets: Kentucky Wonder beans, crookneck and patty-pan squash, Big Boy tomatoes. He planned to make a demonstration garden, from which we'd gather a harvest for our table and also supply food and seeds to the villagers. It was to be our first African miracle: an infinite chain of benevolence rising from these small, crackling seed packets, stretching out from our garden into a circle of other gardens, flowing outward across the Congo like ripples from a rock dropped in a pond.... Father started clearing a pot of ground out of the jungle's edge near our house, and packing off rows.... He beat down a square of tall grass and wild pink flowers ... Then he bent over and began to rip out long handfuls of grass with quick, energetic jerks as though tearing out the hair of the world.... "Leah," he enquired, "why do you think the Lord gave us seeds to grow, instead of having our dinner just spring up out there on the ground like a bunch of field rocks? Because the Lord helps those that help themselves."

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Last words

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Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

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Wikipedia in English (2)

Foreign policy of Mobutu Sese Seko

Missionary kid

▾Book descriptions

The drama of a U.S. missionary family in Africa during a war of decolonization. At its center is Nathan Price, a self-righteous Baptist minister who establishes a mission in a village in 1959 Belgian Congo. The resulting clash of cultures is seen through the eyes of his wife and his four daughters.

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Book description

Synopsis for the Dutch version:
"Eind jaren vijftig trekt Nathan Price met zijn vrouw Orleanna en hun vier dochters naar een dorp in Kongo om de bevolking tot het Christendom te bekeren. De onderneming is van begin af aan gedoemd te mislukken. Het gezin is niet ingesteld op de harde, primitieve levensomstandigheden, en Nathans fanatisme en onbegrip voor zijn omgeving roepen gevaarlijke reacties over hen af. Als de kerk zijn handen van Nathan af trekt en de onrust in Kongo toeneemt, vlucht Orleanna met haar dochters door het oerwoud naar de bewoonde wereld. De gifhouten bijbel is een meeslepende familiegeschiedenis en een ontnuchterend verslag van de gruwelen van religieus fundamentalisme in een uitgebuit land tussen kolonialisme en onafhankelijkheid."

The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement.

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