Barbara Kingsolver

Kimberly Koza (Central College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 8 Apr 1955
Activity 1985-ongoing

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Other

Essayist
Poet
Story-writer

Resources

Kingsolver's Works

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Barbara Kingsolver writes, in her essay entitled “Jabberwocky” from

High Tide in Tucson

(1995): “Art has the power not only to soothe a savage breast, but to change a savage mind.” Since her first novel,

The Bean Trees

, was published in 1988, Kingsolver has used her fiction both to entertain and to teach and inform. Linking herself with an American tradition of political writers that includes Thoreau, Whitman, and Steinbeck and critical of what she views as a contemporary American tendency to dismiss fiction that engages in political critique, Kingsolver consciously seeks in her works to promote social change. Many of her novels explore themes related to social injustice: in

The Bean Trees

she writes about the Sanctuary movement to aid Central American refugees; in

Animal Dreams

…

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1869 words

Citation: Koza, Kimberly. "Barbara Kingsolver". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 September 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2518, accessed 24 November 2024.]