Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver's bestselling books of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction include the novels The Bean Trees and The Poisonwood Bible. Translated into nineteen languages, her work has won a devoted worldwide readership and many awards, including the National Humanities Medal. Her latest book is The Lacuna.

From her Q & A with Anna Metcalfe at the Financial Times:

Can you remember the first novel you read?

My father read me Oliver Twist.

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What is the strangest thing you’ve done when researching a book?

For The Poisonwood Bible I spent an afternoon in the venomous reptiles house of Cincinnati Zoo, waiting to see the inside of a green mamba’s mouth, which is sky blue.

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What book changed your life?

Doris Lessing’s Children of Violence series. I was about 16 when I read the first one. I understood for the first time that fiction is a powerful tool for making people more worldly and ...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue