Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is an American fiction writer. She has written several novels and poems, and established the Bellwether Prize for "literature of social change".

Literary themes

Social justice is an important theme in the work The Bean Trees, and throughout her novels. In this novel the main character, Taylor, meets a family of Guatemalan immigrants, who explain how they were forced to leave their daughter behind to escape torture and death in their home country.

Related Topics:
Social justice - The Bean Trees - Guatemalan

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In The Poisonwood Bible she also examines the role of the United States and other political powers in colonial and post-colonial Africa. She is quite critical of Western governments.

Related Topics:
The Poisonwood Bible - Africa

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Native Americans are a prominent theme in several of Kingsolver's books and a few of her poems, especially relating to the prejudice against Native Americans by white settlers and the Trail of Tears. Her book Pigs in Heaven (a sequel to The Bean Trees) features Turtle, a Cherokee child who was abandoned and left to Taylor. This book highlights the conditions of Native Americans currently in Oklahoma, and the continuation of their traditional ways despite poverty and continuing inequality.

Related Topics:
Native Americans - Trail of Tears - Cherokee

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Poverty is the focus of several of her books such as Holding the Line, a book about the Arizona Mine Strike of 1983. Taylor, the main character of Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven, grew up in poverty and has to continually struggle against it.

Related Topics:
Poverty - Arizona Mine Strike of 1983

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In Kingsolver's book of poems, Another America, social justice is a central theme.

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