A novel about music and escape

Kingsolver's new novel "Partita" features a narrator who once dreamed of becoming a pianist. The book opens with three musical headings, Overture, Prelude, and Allemande, and includes a listening list of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel, and Miriam Makeba.

Living on a farm in the holler

Kingsolver lives on 240 acres in southwest Virginia with her husband, a Border collie, guinea fowl, laying hens, and Icelandic sheep. She rarely leaves the farm, describing herself as an extreme introvert who once wished for invisibility as a superpower.

“I'm as extreme an introvert as they make.”

Twenty million copies sold worldwide

Kingsolver has published 19 books that have sold over 20 million copies in the United States alone. She has won most major literary prizes, some twice, and achieved rare celebrity status for a novelist.

Demon Copperhead won the Pulitzer

Her 2022 novel about an Appalachian boy orphaned by the opioid epidemic won the Pulitzer Prize in 2023, spent over a year on the bestseller list, and was voted the best book of the 21st century by New York Times readers.

Writer's fear after success

After "Demon Copperhead" became a massive success, Kingsolver struggled with what she calls writer's fear, worrying about whether readers would like her next book and how it would perform. A Substack post titled "Barbara Kingsolver Is a Fraud" actually got her writing again.

“I think it should actually be called writer's fear.”

Defending working-class culture

The Substack post accused Kingsolver of being a fraud because her father was a doctor and she played classical piano, stereotyping rural people as unable to appreciate high culture. The accusation infuriated her and became the spark for "Partita."

Art belongs to everyone

Kingsolver has always believed that the arts belong to everyone, not just the elite. She writes socially engaged fiction in the tradition of Dickens and Steinbeck, addressing political and cultural issues with moral urgency.

A storyteller from childhood

As a child, Kingsolver created recurring characters, the Maya stories, the Henry stories, the Annie stories, that grew new chapters whenever her younger sister Ann asked for them. She kept a diary starting at age seven, beginning with "When I first saw Africa I thought it was a cloud."

“When I first saw Africa I thought it was a cloud.”

Her father's radical poverty

Kingsolver's father, Dr. Wendell, was a physician who imposed poverty on his own family to live out his values. The kids wore hand-me-downs and homemade clothes; exceptions were made only for books, travel, and musical instruments.

“Your value is not what you have but what you do.”

Medical missions shaped her worldview

The family took medical mission trips to Congo, St. Lucia, and Newfoundland. In Congo's Kikongo village, young Kingsolver learned Kituba, avoided spitting vipers, and watched aid workers drop parachuted packages of essential supplies, penicillin, antivenom, surgical tools, that were never enough.

Rejecting the role of wife

Watching her mother struggle in marriage, Kingsolver decided early on she didn't want to be a wife. She threw herself into school clubs, discovered feminist literature through the Dewey decimal system, and earned a piano scholarship to DePauw University.

Reinventing herself at college

At DePauw, Kingsolver switched from music to zoology, dropped her Appalachian accent, changed her clothes, and marched for abortion rights and against the Vietnam War. She worked as a housecleaner and typesetter while studying.

Years abroad finding herself

After college, Kingsolver spent years traveling and working abroad: training as an archeologist's assistant in Greece, digging Viking sites in York, working as a copy editor, translator, and art model. She kept notebooks filled with poems and stories.

Science led to writing

Kingsolver earned a master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, studying why termites behave altruistically. She left her Ph.D. program to work as a technical writer and began freelancing for newspapers and literary journals.

The Bean Trees changed everything

Kingsolver's debut novel, published in 1988, introduced Taylor Greer and tackled child abuse and transracial adoption. Though it sold modestly, book clubs and independent booksellers kept it alive. Critics divided over whether her moral intent was a strength or a flaw.

The Poisonwood Bible and criticism

"The Poisonwood Bible" spent six months on the bestseller list in 1998, telling the story of Western intervention in Congo through five female narrators. Critics like Lee Siegel dismissed it as "nice writing" that offered a no-calorie version of real tragedies.

Meeting Steven Hopp

Kingsolver met Steven Hopp, a chemistry professor, at the University of Arizona. They married in 1985 and later relocated to his farm near Meadowview, Virginia. They have a daughter, Lily, and share a Steinway piano and a deep commitment to local food systems.

Writing through pain and loss

Kingsolver suffered from Dupuytren's contracture, a disease that thickens palm tissues and curls fingers. She has had corrective surgery on both hands but some days can only type with one hand. She still plays piano and knits.

Waiting for her parents to die

Kingsolver needed both her parents to be gone before she could write "Partita." Her mother died in 2013; her father, Dr. Wendell, died in spring 2024. Only then could she fully explore her origins and family trauma.

What art can actually do

In "Partita," a character named Mickie tells the protagonist that "the point of art is to help you like your life better." This reflects Kingsolver's belief that art's value lies not in achievement but in providing beauty to sustain people through their lives.

“The point of art is to help you like your life better.”