From the back:
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it-from garden seeds to Scripture-is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.
I really enjoyed this book. I had taken it out of the library about 2 years ago, but returned it before I had the chance to read it. I was at a used clothing store, and saw it on a shelf so I picked it up for a couple of bucks, and was super glad that I did!
In second year university I took a course on Colonial Africa, and read a book called King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. It was about the colonialization of the Congo and all the atrocities that were committed by the Belgians to the Congolese people. I have always had an interest in the Congo since taking that course, and so I was intrigued to read a novel based in the Congo.
This was a really good book, but a sad book too. To see how this family was destroyed based on their experience in the Congo and how their choices shaped their futures so differently. Took a little while to get into it, but once I was about a hundred pages in, I was hooked. Worth a read.
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