The Poisonwood Bible

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

The end of colonial rule in Africa is shown in microcosm through the tragicomic collapse of a Baptist missionary family. The mother and all four daughters take turns narrating and their distinctive voices are full of life. (The eldest daughter, a kind of Malaprop Barbie, is a hoot.) Arriving full of certainties in the Belgian Congo in 1959, they're in for a series of rude shocks. Father is a hellfire patriarch come to chastise the heathen natives; other members of the family, though cowed, are questioning and observant. The swell of events soon reaches their jungle outpost; and as the country evicts its exploitive Belgian rulers, the women in the family turn away from Father. The novel is unbalanced, not least in structure, with a lengthy what-bappened-next driven not by plot demands but by the author's need to get across all she has to say about power, politics and hypocrisy on the international as well as the domestic scale. We forgive her because she is right, and because we couldn't bear to leave these characters. A big, ambitious, funny and moving book. Shortlisted for the 1999 Orange Prize. (Kirkus UK)

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