Barbara Kingsolver

Author profile

born

April 08, 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland, The United States

gender

female

website

http://www.kingsolver.com/

genre

Literature & Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

About this author

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Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist, and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in Africa in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in Biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her most famous works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.

Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Each of her books published since 1993 have been on The New York Times Best Seller list. Kingsol...moreBarbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist, and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in Africa in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in Biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her most famous works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.

Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments. Each of her books published since 1993 have been on The New York Times Best Seller list. Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the UK's Orange Prize for Fiction 2010, for The Lacuna and the National Humanities Medal. She has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

In 2000, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change."

Kingsolver was born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1955 and grew up in Carlisle in rural Kentucky. When Kingsolver was seven years old, her father, a physician, took the family to the former Republic of Congo in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her parents worked in a public health capacity, and the family lived without electricity or running water.

After graduating from high school, Kingsolver attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana on a music scholarship, studying classical piano. Eventually, however, she changed her major to biology when she realized that "classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of [them:] get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby." She was involved in activism on her campus, and took part in protests against the Vietnam war. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1977, and moved to France for a year before settling in Tucson, Arizona, where she would live for much of the next two decades. In 1980 she enrolled in graduate school at the University of Arizona, where she earned a Master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology.

Kingsolver began her full-time writing career in the mid 1980s as a science writer for the university, which eventually lead to some freelance feature writing. She began her career in fiction writing after winning a short story contest in a local Phoenix newspaper. In 1985 she married Joseph Hoffmann; their daughter Camille was born in 1987. She moved with her daughter to Tenerife in the Canary Islands for a year during the first Gulf war, mostly due to frustration over America's military involvement. After returning to the US in 1992, she separated from her husband.

In 1994, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University. She was also married to Steven Hopp, that year, and their daughter, Lily, was born in 1996. In 2004, Kingsolver moved with her family to a farm in Washington County, Virginia, where they currently reside. In 2008, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Duke University, where she delivered a commencement address entitled "How to be Hopeful".

In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Kingsolver says, "I never wanted to be famous, and still don't, [...:] the universe rewarded me with what I dreaded most." She says created her own website just to compete with a plethora of fake ones, "as a defence to protect my family from misinformation. Wikipedia abhors a vacuum. If you don't define yourself, it will get done for you in colourful ways."(less)

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Books by Barbara Kingsolver

Average rating: 3.88 · 414,275 ratings · 31,849 reviews · 41 distinct works

	The Poisonwood Bible 3.87 avg rating — 233,895 ratings — published 1998 — 56 editions	My rating:
	The Bean Trees 3.85 avg rating — 42,463 ratings — published 1988 — 24 editions	My rating:
	Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, Camille Kingsolver 4.04 avg rating — 35,955 ratings — published 2007 — 25 editions	My rating:
	Prodigal Summer 3.89 avg rating — 32,603 ratings — published 2000 — 26 editions	My rating:
	Animal Dreams 3.95 avg rating — 20,223 ratings — published 1990 — 17 editions	My rating:
	Pigs In Heaven 3.85 avg rating — 20,069 ratings — published 1992 — 30 editions	My rating:
	The Lacuna 3.70 avg rating — 15,295 ratings — published 2009 — 21 editions	My rating:
	High Tide In Tucson: Essays From Now Or Never 3.96 avg rating — 4,645 ratings — published 1995 — 12 editions	My rating:
	Small Wonder 3.98 avg rating — 4,053 ratings — published 2002 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Homeland and Other Stories 3.73 avg rating — 2,612 ratings — published 1989 — 14 editions	My rating:

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Interviews

November 2009, Barbara Kingsolver
"The essential ingredient of authorship is authority. You hunt it out in a library, you chase it down the street, or you knit it from the fiber of your own will. From somewhere, you get it. You begin." ...More

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Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

tags: hope

1,140 people liked it

“The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away.”
― Barbara Kingsolver

tags: friendship

640 people liked it

“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

tags: life

311 people liked it

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Polls

January 2012 Group Reads.

Again top 4 books will be the winners!

Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.

4 votes, 21.1%

The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings

4 votes, 21.1%

Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding

3 votes, 15.8%

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

3 votes, 15.8%

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

2 votes, 10.5%

Look at Me by Jennifer Egan

1 vote, 5.3%

The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon

1 vote, 5.3%

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

1 vote, 5.3%

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

0 votes, 0.0%

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

0 votes, 0.0%

19 total votes

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Cyber Book Club: June Book of the Month Ideas?	24	78	Apr 23, 2009 09:44am
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The Next Best Boo...: Top 5 All Time - No Classics Allowed	241	2225	Jul 09, 2009 03:46pm

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Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara's Fans (2052)

Barbara Kingsolver

Author profile

combine editionsBooks by Barbara Kingsolver

Upcoming Events

Interviews

Quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

combine editions
Books by Barbara Kingsolver