“It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion--joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things.”

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About Barbara Kingsolver

American novelist, essayist, and poet

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist, and poet. She is known for fiction and nonfiction that examine how people live within their communities and environments, with attention to social justice and biodiversity. Her best-known books include The Poisonwood Bible, about a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family’s effort to eat locally. In 2023, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Demon Copperhead.

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Books by Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible

2003

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The lacuna

2009

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2007

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The Bean Trees

1998

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Prodigal Summer Display

2001

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