The Poisonwood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver

In 1959, a missionary named Nathan Price transports his wife and four daughters to a remote village in the Belgian Congo to convert the natives. The family is met with hostility from the locals, particularly a vengeful witch doctor. They also face bands of desperate rebels, dangerous wildlife, and the inevitable petty inconveniences a hyper-conventional Midwestern family might expect to face in an alien land. After tragedy strikes, the family leaves the Congo and Kingsolver details the subsequent fates of each of the female members, each narrating in her own distinctive voice. Besides being a vivid novel about family and a tour de force of characterization, THE POISONWOOD BIBLE is also a vehicle for Kingsolver's ideas about the Congo's disastrous history and America's role in it.

Editions of The Poisonwood Bible

ISBN 9780783884684	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Thorndike Pr	Date 2000	Price None Available
ISBN 9780060512828	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Harpercollins	Date 2003	Price $1.00	Fair
ISBN 9780783884677	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Thorndike Pr	Date 1999	Price None Available
ISBN 9780060933647	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Harpercollins	Date 2000	Price $12.87	Very Good
ISBN 9781417687701	Binding/Format Prebinding	Publisher Bt Bound	Date 2005	Price None Available
ISBN 9780060185794	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Harpercollins	Date 2000	Price $45.98	Good
ISBN 9780060786502	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Perennial	Date 2005	Price $4.41	Very Good
ISBN 9781593559502	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Brilliance Audio	Date 2004	Price $31.48	NEW
ISBN 9781593559519	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Brilliance Audio Lib Edn	Date 2004	Price $94.54	NEW
ISBN 9781593359027	Binding/Format MP3 CD	Publisher Brilliance Audio	Date 2004	Price $35.95	New
ISBN 9781593359034	Binding/Format MP3 CD	Publisher Brilliance Audio Lib Edn	Date 2004	Price $32.09	NEW
ISBN 9780060930530	Binding/Format Paperback	Publisher Harpercollins	Date 1999	Price $1.00	Good
ISBN 9781567404081	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Brilliance Audio	Date 1998	Price $10.00	Very Good
ISBN 9780060175405	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Harpercollins	Date 1998	Price $1.00	Used - Acceptable

Publisher Notes

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 familys 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 Congos 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. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husbands part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters--the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their fathers intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility. Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolvers previous work, and extends this beloved writer's vision to an entirely new level. 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.

Media Reviews

"...Barbara Kingsolver has dreamed a magnificent fiction and a ferocious bill of indictment."

First Line

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle. My sisters and I were all counting on having one birthday apiece during our twelve-month mission. "And heaven knows," our mother predicted, "they won't have Betty Crocker in the Congo."

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