BARBARA KINGSOLVER

World renowned author of The Poisonwood Bible

Throughout her career Barbara Kingsolver has generated commercial success and cultural acclaim for her work’s focus on the lived experiences of real people.

Raised in Carlisle, Kentucky, Kingsolver was raised by parents who were active in public health initiatives. After a childhood that featured a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where her father worked as a physician, she graduated from high school and headed to Depauw University in Indiana. Even though she was initially interested in pursuing a career as a concert pianist and won a scholarship for studying music, she eventually decided to get her degree in biology.

She graduated in 1977 and moved to locations around the world before settling in Tucson, Arizona. Once there, she went back to school, graduating from the University of Arizona with a Master’s in Ecology. With her background in connecting with diverse populations of people and biology, she began writing as a technical writer for the university and in a freelance capacity for the Tucson Weekly, contributing features on local stories.

As she wrote in these different roles, she began exploring more creative avenues in the mid 1980s. After winning an award from the Phoenix newspaper The New Times for a short story she submitted, she focused more on her fiction writing. In 1988, she completed and published The Bean Trees, a novel that focuses on the journey of a woman from Kentucky to Arizona. Since then, she has become world famous from her novels, short stories, essays and poems.

She has received the National Humanities Medal, the James Beard Award and the LA Times Book Prize and has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize. 

She lives in Appalachia in Virginia, where she continues to write.