Barbara Kingsolver
Autore di Gli occhi negli alberi
Sull'Autore
Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland and grew up in Eastern Kentucky. As a child, Kingsolver used to beg her mother to tell her bedtime stories. She soon started to write stories and essays of her own, and at the age of nine, she began to keep a journal. After mostra altro graduating with a degree in biology form De Pauw University in Indiana in 1977, Kingsolver pursued graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She earned her Master of Science degree in the early 1980s. A position as a science writer for the University of Arizona soon led Kingsolver into feature writing for journals and newspapers. Her articles have appeared in a number of publications, including The Nation, The New York Times, and Smithsonian magazines. In 1985, she married a chemist, becoming pregnant the following year. During her pregnancy, Kingsolver suffered from insomnia. To ease her boredom when she couldn't sleep, she began writing fiction Barbara Kingsolver's first fiction novel, The Bean Trees, published in 1988, is about a young woman who leaves rural Kentucky and finds herself living in urban Tucson. Since then, Kingsolver has written other novels, including Holding the Line, Homeland, and Pigs in Heaven. In 1995, after the publication of her essay collection High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, De Pauw University. Her latest works include The Lacuna and Flight Behavior. Barbara's nonfiction book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was written with her family. This is the true story of the family's adventures as they move to a farm in rural Virginia and vow to eat locally for one year. They grow their own vegetables, raise their own poultry and buy the rest of their food directly from farmers markets and other local sources. (Bowker Author Biography) mostra meno
Serie
Opere di Barbara Kingsolver
The Complete Fiction: The Bean Trees, Homeland, Animal Dreams, Pigs in Heaven (1995) 90 copie, 3 recensioni
Homeland {short story} 2 copie
Kingsolver, Barbara Archive 1 copia
Loveroot * 1 copia
falling house 1 copia
Kingsolver Barbara 1 copia
Barbara Kingsolver 2 Books Collection Set (Demon Copperhead [Hardcover], Poisonwood Bible) (2023) 1 copia
Demon Cooperhead 1 copia
Opere correlate
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998) — Prefazione, alcune edizioni — 4,842 copie, 126 recensioni
A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (1949) — Introduzione, alcune edizioni — 4,499 copie, 60 recensioni
Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times (2001) — Collaboratore — 450 copie, 4 recensioni
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (2008) — Collaboratore — 421 copie, 1 recensione
Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature (1991) — Collaboratore — 403 copie, 4 recensioni
Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach (2003) — Collaboratore — 202 copie, 1 recensione
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to the Present (2007) — Collaboratore — 191 copie, 2 recensioni
Era meglio se stavo a casa! : i grandi scrittori raccontanoi loro peggiori viaggi (1994) — Collaboratore — 181 copie, 5 recensioni
This Is My Best: Great Writers Share Their Favorite Work (2004) — Collaboratore — 163 copie, 3 recensioni
Novel History: Historians and Novelists Confront America's Past and Each Other (2001) — Collaboratore — 134 copie, 1 recensione
War No More: Three Centuries of American Antiwar and Peace Writing (2016) — Collaboratore — 88 copie, 1 recensione
Mid-life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude (1994) — Collaboratore — 66 copie, 3 recensioni
Did My Mama Like to Dance? and Other Stories about Mothers and Daughters (1994) — Collaboratore — 40 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Nome canonico
- Kingsolver, Barbara
- Nome legale
- Kingsolver, Barbara Ellen
- Data di nascita
- 1955-04-08
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- USA
- Luogo di nascita
- Annapolis, Maryland, USA
- Luogo di residenza
- Carlisle, Kentucky, USA
Léopoldville, Congo (now Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Greencastle, Indiana, USA
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Washington County, Virginia, USA
England, UK (mostra tutto 8)
France
Canary Islands, Spain - Istruzione
- DePauw University (BS|1977|biology)
University of Arizona (MS|ecology and evolutionary biology) - Attività lavorative
- novelist
poet
short-story writer - Relazioni
- Kingsolver, Camille (daughter)
Hopp, Steven (husband)
Hopp, Lily (daughter) - Organizzazioni
- Rock Bottom Remainders (band)
- Premi e riconoscimenti
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2023)
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction (2022)
National Humanities Medal (2000)
Best American Science and Nature Writing (2001)
Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award (2011)
Arizona Press Club Award for Outstanding Feature Writing (1986) (mostra tutto 14)
Women's Prize for Fiction (2010, 2023)
Orange Prize for Fiction (2010)
James Beard Foundation Award (2008)
Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1993)
Library of Virginia Lifetime Achievement Award (2014)
Virginia Women in History (2018)
Honorary Doctorate of Letters, DePauw University (1994)
Phi Beta Kappa (DePauw University, 1977) - Agente
- Frances Goldin (Frances Goldin Literary Agency)
- Breve biografia
- Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a non-fiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Utenti
Discussioni
"Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver in 75 Books Challenge for 2023 (Marzo 29)
August 2019: Barbara Kingsolver in Monthly Author Reads (Dicembre 2020)
Barbara Kingsolver: American Author Challenge in 75 Books Challenge for 2015 (Dicembre 2015)
[The Lacuna] by [[Barbara Kingsolver]] in Orange January/July (Luglio 2011)
Recensioni
Well researched and well written, realistic about drug use, rough and raw.
Nice tribute to Dicken's "David Copperfield". Instead of dark corners of Dickensian England, the present day in the neglected hollers of Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains serves as the backdrop of the story. This story speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind. This story is about survivors of institutional poverty and its damages to children in this society.
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Premi e riconoscimenti
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Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 42
- Opere correlate
- 31
- Utenti
- 88,035
- Popolarità
- #119
- Voto
- 4.1
- Recensioni
- 2,158
- ISBN
- 549
- Lingue
- 18
- Preferito da
- 549
Story Synopsis:
I remember the dilemma I had faced while reviewing Lan Samantha Chang’s The Family Chao, which was a modern-day retelling of Dostoevsky’s [b:The Brothers Karamazov|4934|The Brothers Karamazov|Fyodor Dostoevsky|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1427728126l/4934._SX50_.jpg|3393910]. While her adaptation had been faithful to the original, the classic itself was not suitable to a modernisation by virtue of its themes and its philosophy. This made her novel seem highly stereotypical and even offensive.
I face a similar conundrum this time, though Charles Dickens’ classic ‘David Copperfield’ is much more flexible towards an updated retelling because of its universal themes.
If you have read the original epic, you will notice how faithfully and brilliantly Barbara Kingsolver has transported the characters to the Appalachian mountains. All the characters get a similar deal as in the original, albeit through a different approach thanks to the change in era and setting.
The characters have been given somewhat similar names as their older counterparts. Murdstone becomes Muller Stone, Steerforth becomes Sterling ford, Dora turns into Dori, Tommy Traddles is now Tommy Waddell… This kind of writing choice makes it very easy for us to remember whom each new character is based upon. (That said, I was not at all happy to see my favourite Agnes being changed to ‘Angus’.)
David Copperfield was the titular character’s coming-of-age story; Demon Copperhead is also a bindungsroman for its eponymous lead. Both characters are equally gutsy and equally judgemental. Both want to succeed despite the lemons life keeps throwing at them, and contrary to expectations, they do end up carving a niche for themselves in this haphazard world.
The plot is also faithful to the original. No one’s destiny changes paths just because of the modernisation. This is both good and bad. Good because I really respect authors who retain the spirit of the original in their retellings. (There’s no point calling a work a retelling if you retain nothing of the base work except the character names, right?) Bad because you already know what’s going to happen to every single one of them!
In other words, as a retelling, this book rates pretty high because it sticks to the format and still gives it enough of a twist to make it stand on its own as an independent work.
Where the book failed for me is in its tawdry portrayal of the mountain people. Don’t get me wrong. Kingsolver is a master at settings, and this book is no exception. The mountains of Lee County come alive through her beautiful descriptions. But it was somewhat disappointing to see every possible stereotype about the locals make its way into this book. This is somewhat ironic because Demon tells us multiple times how he feels upset about the stereotypes outsiders have about his people, and then he goes on to live a life reiterating every single cliché through his own deeds, which sounds even worse when heard in first person. Drugs, alcohol, sex, cuss words, poverty, physical violence, domestic violence, social backwardness, racial discrimination ,… you name it and it is there in this book. I am not going to remark on how much of this might be based on reality as I have no first-hand experience of that culture and hence have no right to judge. But from the way it was portrayed, I got hardly any good vibes about the community, and that it is a sure sign that only hackneyed ideas were being thrown at us.
Dickens’ work was also somewhat “misery porn” in style and slightly offensive against those not “physically perfect.” But as David Copperfield was written in the late 1840s, it gets away with this outdated style of writing. Demon Copperhead cannot use the era as an excuse. As it is a retelling, I am also taken aback by the amount of vulgarity in the story. This might not bother most readers, but to me, inserting crude content into a favourite classic story was akin to blasphemy.
How would you feel about this book without knowing the original? Well, you might like it better as you won’t keep comparing the two works and will read this one on its own merit. So if you are okay with the ribald content and the vapid portrayal of the hillbilly people, this story *might* work better for you. Then again, the book is needlessly lengthy, because it skips nothing from the original plot. The start is appealing, but the middle is quite repetitive. The story stays stuck in this looped narrative until almost the very end, by which time I had lost all my patience with it.
To me, the book feels like an epic writing achievement in some ways, transporting 1800s upper class London to a modern hillbilly setting. But in most other ways, it feels so unbelievably flat and so offensive to the original as well as to the contemporary dwellers of the location that I cannot endorse it wholeheartedly.
2.5 stars, rounding down because I expected far more from Ms. Kingsolver.
Do note that this is very much an outlier review. So please read other reviews and take a call on this joint-winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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