Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver is an American author, poet, and essayist. The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author has written multiple bestsellers, essays, and poetry collections, as well as regularly contributing to periodicals such as The New York Times and Harper’s Magazine. Her works, which focus on themes of social justice, feminism, family and relationships, and nature, have been widely praised for their combination of intellectual depth with accessible storytelling.
Kingsolver was born in 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland, where her father was a physics professor at the US Naval Academy. As a child, she read extensively, and credits the librarians at her small-town Virginia library with instilling in her a deep love of literature. She went on to earn a doctoral degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona in 1981.
It wasn’t until a friend encouraged her to write down some of her stories that she realized the power of narrative. Drawing inspiration from her earlier academic experience, Kingsolver began writing articles for magazines like National Wildlife and The Georgia Review interweaving ecology, social justice, and family dynamics.
Kingsolver’s fiction and nonfiction works explore the same themes, with characters grappling with an array of social issues, and reflecting on their personal histories. Her first novel, The Bean Trees, follows the story of a young woman from rural Kentucky who makes her way to Arizona, encountering along the way strangers who ultimately become her family. The novel, which has often been assigned as required reading for high school and college classes, was a finalist for the 1985 Pulitzer Prize.
Following The Bean Trees, Kingsolver continued to write critically acclaimed fiction, including the best-selling book The Poisonwood Bible, a story told from the perspective of an American missionary’s wife and her four daughters living in the Congo. She has also published two collections of short stories, a book of poetry, and several nonfiction books, including Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a collection of essays about food production and consumption, and Small Wonders, a book of essays on the natural world.
Outside of literature, Kingsolver is an active political and environmental advocate. She is a cofounder of the progressive government watchdog group National Writers Union, and serves on the board of the Nature Conservancy. She has served on the President's Council on Environmental Quality, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011.
Kingsolver is a true example of an interdisciplinary artist, mastering the craft of storytelling to make complex political and environmental issues accessible to a wide audience. Her work is both thoughtful and entertaining, and has rewarded her with a broad readership and numerous awards and honors. Whether she’s writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, Kingsolver’s ability to capture the human experience in meaningful and entertaining ways is truly remarkable.
