Context
Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955.
She was raised in a part of eastern Kentucky positioned between
extravagant horse farms and impoverished coalfields. Although rich
imagery of her home state fills many of her novels, Kingsolver never
imagined staying in the region. She left Kentucky to attend to attend
De Pauw University in Indiana. Kingsolver majored in biology in
college and took one creative writing course.
Kingsolver became active in anti-Vietnam protests during
her college years, which marked the beginning of her commitment
to political and social activism. A few years after her graduation,
she went to the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she earned
a masters of science degree in biology and ecology. Kingsolver supported
herself working at a variety of jobs until she finished graduate
school, at which time she got a job as a science writer for the University
of Arizona. This job led her into journalistic writing. Her numerous
feature stories have appeared in many nationally acclaimed publications.
According to Kingsolver, journalism and scientific writing helped
her develop good discipline and paved the way for her career in
fiction writing.
In 1985, Kingsolver married. After
becoming pregnant, she began struggling with insomnia. Her doctor
suggested that she scrub the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush to
tire herself out. Instead, Kingsolver spent her sleepless nights
curled up in a closet writing her first novel, The Bean
Trees. The Bean Trees was an immediate
success among book critics when it was published in 1988,
but more important to Kingsolver, it was also widely read by people
from all walks of life. Kingsolver has firmly committed herself
to keeping her work accessible; while she hopes that literary types
will appreciate her writing, she also wants to know that people in
rural Kentucky read and enjoy her novels.
Kingsolver believes in writing that promotes social change.
She is committed to social and environmental causes, and The
Bean Trees reflects this commitment. Kingsolver's dedication
to literature with a social conscience led her to found the Bellwether
Prize for Fiction, which was awarded for the first time in 2000.
She continues to work as an environmental and human-rights activist.
Kingsolver's background in ecology and commitment to
activism are evident in The Bean Trees, but she
resists further conjecture about her life's influence on her work.
Although her readers are often eager to assume her work is autobiographical,
the author claims that only small details come directly from her
life experiences; the rest is invented.
Since her first novel, Kingsolver's work has continued
to meet with success. Pigs in Heaven (1993)
is the popular sequel to The Bean Trees. Her other
novels include Animal Dreams, (1990) The Poisonwood
Bible, (1998) which was an Oprah
Book Club selection and earned international praise, and Prodigal
Summer.
