The Poisonwood Bible

Name: The Poisonwood Bible
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
ISBN: 9780060786502

Barbara Kingsolver • 1998

Devastation Rating

Existential Dread

Congo missionary colonialism family

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Our Take

Nathan Price takes his wife and four daughters to the Congo in 1959 to save souls and destroys everything he touches. Kingsolver gives each female voice its own grammar — Ruth May's is the most devastating. The mission is the colonialism and the colonialism is the marriage. Nothing survives intact.

Appears In

► Brothers and Sisters — The Bonds That Break You ► Indigenous Voices — Stolen Land, Surviving People ► Multigenerational Tragedy — The Damage That Compounds

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