30 Facts About Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Ellen Kingsolver was born on April 8,1955 and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet.

Barbara Kingsolver's widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally.

Barbara Kingsolver was raised in rural Kentucky, lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood, and she currently lives in Appalachia.

Barbara Kingsolver earned degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels.

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

When Barbara Kingsolver was seven, her father, a physician, took the family to Leopoldville, Congo.

Barbara Kingsolver changed her major to biology after realizing that "classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of [them] get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby".

Barbara Kingsolver was involved in activism on her campus, and took part in protests against the Vietnam War.

In 1977, Barbara Kingsolver graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Science, and moved to France for a year.

In 1985, Barbara Kingsolver married Joseph Hoffmann, and gave birth to their daughter Camille in 1987.

In 1994, Barbara Kingsolver was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University.

In 2004, Barbara Kingsolver moved with her family to a farm in Washington County, Virginia.

Barbara Kingsolver played the keyboard, but is no longer an active member of the band.

Barbara Kingsolver said she created her own website just to compete with a plethora of fake ones "as a defense to protect my family from misinformation".

Barbara Kingsolver said in 2020 that rural America is generally regarded by artistic elites with "a profound antipathy".

Barbara Kingsolver began her full-time writing career in the mid-1980s as a science writer for the University of Arizona, which eventually led to freelance feature writing, including many cover stories for the local alternative weekly, the Tucson Weekly.

Barbara Kingsolver began her career in fiction writing after winning a short-story contest in a local Phoenix newspaper.

Every book that Barbara Kingsolver has written since Pigs in Heaven has been on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Barbara Kingsolver returned to novel-writing with The Lacuna, published in 2009.

Barbara Kingsolver received her first Women's Prize for Fiction for the novel in 2010.

In 2011, Kingsolver was the first ever recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Richard C Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.

In 2014, Barbara Kingsolver was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Library of Virginia.

Barbara Kingsolver has been published as a science journalist in periodicals such as Economic Botany on topics such as desert plants and bioresources.

Barbara Kingsolver has stated that she wanted to create a literary prize to "encourage writers, publishers, and readers to consider how fiction engages visions of social change and human justice".

Barbara Kingsolver has written novels in both the first-person and third-person narrative styles, and she frequently employs overlapping narratives.

Barbara Kingsolver often writes about places and situations with which she is familiar; many of her stories are based in places she has lived, such as Central Africa, Arizona, and Appalachia.

Barbara Kingsolver has stated that her novels are not autobiographical, although there are often commonalities between her life and her work.

Barbara Kingsolver's work is often strongly idealistic and has been called a form of activism.

Barbara Kingsolver's characters are frequently written around struggles for social equality, such as the hardships faced by undocumented immigrants, the working poor, and single mothers.

Barbara Kingsolver has been said to use prose and engaging narratives to make historical events, such as the Congo's struggles for independence, more interesting and engaging for the average reader.