'Look through the eyes of another person'

 

“Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.” – Barbara Kingsolver

 

Born in Annapolis, MD on April 8, 1955, Kingsolver intended to be a classical musician and, in fact, had a college scholarship to become one.  But, she said she realized that “only about 6 people a year get hired in that world.”  So she switched her focus to the study of science before trying her hand at writing.   Since 1988, the year her first novel The Bean Trees was published, she has written 18 books, including 2022’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Demon Copperhead and this year’s Partita.

 

A graduate of DePauw University in Indiana, Kingsolver makes her home in southeast Kentucky after living many years in Arizona. There, she wrote some of her most memorable works like The Poisonwood Bible and Pigs in Heaven, earning her a reputation as a writer who focused on topics of social justice and biodiversity, and the interaction between humans, communities and the environment.

 

Kingsolver said her readers seem to like that she puts herself inside her stories.  “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”