Kingsolver is one of America’s leading writers. Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation.
A community celebration of the publication of “Unsheltered,†a new novel by Barbara Kingsolver, is held Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 7:30 p.m., at the Martha Washington Inn and Spa in Abingdon, Virginia. Kingsolver reads from and discusses the book and answers questions from the audience. The event, sponsored by the Friends of the Washington County Public Library, is free and open to the public. There will be book sales and signings as well.
Kingsolver is one of America’s leading writers. Her books, in order of publication, are “The Bean Trees,†“Homeland,†“Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike,†“Animal Dreams,†“Another America,†“Pigs in Heaven,†“High Tide in Tucson,†“The Poisonwood Bible,†“Prodigal Summer,†“Small Wonder,†“Last Stand: America’s Virgin Lands,†with photographer Annie Griffiths Belt, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,†“The Lacuna,†“Flight Behavior: A Novel†and “Unsheltered.â€
Her books have been translated into more than two dozen languages and have been adopted into the core literature curriculum in high schools and colleges throughout the nation. She has contributed to more than 50 literary anthologies, and her reviews and articles have appeared in most major U.S. newspapers and magazines.
Kingsolver was born in 1955 and grew up in rural Kentucky. She earned degrees in biology from DePaul University and the University of Arizona and has worked as a freelance writer and author since 1985. At various times in her adult life she has lived in England, France and the Canary Islands, and has worked in Europe, Africa, Asia, Mexico and South America. She spent two decades in Tucson, Arizona, before moving to Washington, County, Virginia, in 2004 where she currently resides.
Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th century by Writers Digest. In 2000, she received the National Humanities Medal, the country’s highest honor for service through the arts. “The Poisonwood Bible†was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, and was an Oprah Book Club selection. “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle†won numerous prizes, including the James Beard award. “The Lacuna†won Britain’s prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010 (the best novel in the world written in the English language by a woman). In 2011, Kingsolver was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work.
Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, the nation’s largest prize for an unpublished first novel, which since 1998 has helped to establish the careers of more than a half dozen new literary voices. Through a recent agreement, the prize has now become the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.
She has two daughters, Camille (born in 1987) and Lily (1996) and a grandchild. Her husband, Steven Hopp, teaches environmental studies at Emory & Henry College and owns the Harvest Table Restaurant in Meadowview, Virginia.
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