BARBARA KINGSOLVER

by George Brosi

Some biographical sources do not even mention Barbara Kingsolver's Kentucky connections. After all, she was born in Maryland and received her Bachelor's Degree from an Indiana college. Her Master's is from the University of Arizona, and she has lived in Tucson since 1977.

Despite the fact that Kingsolver's writing career can be written up without a mention of Kentucky, a telephone interview I had with her mother on December 5, 1994, revealed this writer's deep Kentucky roots. Barbara Kingsolver's parents, Dr. Wendell R. Kingsolver and Virginia Lee Henry Kingsolver, both grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, and met as students at Lafayette High School there. They both earned Bachelor's degrees from the University of Kentucky. In 1954, as soon as Dr. Kingsolver earned his M.D. degree from the University of Michigan, the Kingsolver's moved back to the state, this time to Carlise, Kentucky, where they opened up a family medical practice which employed them both for thirty-six years. Their first son, Robert, was born in Michigan in 1953. He is now a Professor of Biology at Kentucky Wesleyan College. Barbara Kingsolver was born in 1955 in Annapolis, Maryland, where her father was temporarily serving as a Navy doctor. The family returned to Carlisle in 1956 before her second birthday. The last Kingsolver child, Ann, was born in 1960. Although now married, she has kept her own family name and is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Barbara Kingsolver was raised in Carlisle and graduated from Nicholas County High School there. Nevertheless, she was exposed to other locales. In 1963 her father practiced medicine in the central African country then named the Congo, now called Zaire, and in 1967 he also took his family with him when he practiced in St. Lucia, a Caribbean island. Another ethnic influence was the result of Dr. Kingsolver's pride in his Indian heritage. Although he only claims to be 1/64 Cherokee, one of his aunts was the beneficiary of a "jumping gene," and thus looked distinctly like a Cherokee (interview). Overall, Barbara Kingsolver's family background was very stable and supportive and thoroughly Kentuckian. However, various elements of her upbringing did prepare her to become a writer sensitive to multi-ethnic issues.

After graduating from Nicholas County High School, Barbara Kingsolver entered DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, on a music scholarship. Before graduating from there in 1977 magna cum laude with a double major in Biology and English, she had lived and studied in Athens and Paris. After graduation, she moved to Tucson to pursue a graduate degree in the University of Arizona's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She received her masters in animal behavior in 1981. It was in Tucson that she began her writing career working for the Arid Lands Institute as a scientific writer. Her success in this arena gave her the confidence to write fiction. The eclectic nature of her writing is emphasized by Wade Hall writing about her early career in The Kentucky Encyclopedia: "Her writings include technical articles and poetry and have been published in such periodicals as Mademoiselle, Progressive, The New York Times, Redbook, The Virginia Quarterly Review and The New Mexico Humanities Review" (519). In 1985 she married Joseph Hoffman, a chemist. They had a child named Camille, but are now divorced.

Barbara Kingsolver's first published book was The Bean Trees. It was a novel about a Kentucky woman who moved out west. The book became an immediate critical and popular success. It made the New York Times notable books list and won an award from the American Library Association. Since that time Kingsolver's literary reputation and popular following have continued to grow, giving her a secure place in the contemporary American literary scene.

Hall, Wade. "Kingsolver, Barbara." in Kleber, John, editor in chief. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1992, 512.

Kingsolver, Virginia Lee Henry. Phone interview. December 5, 1994.

by George Brosi

The Bean Trees: A Novel. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.

Homeland and Other Stories. New York: Harper and Row, 1989.

Holding the Line: Women and the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983. 1989.

Animal Dreams: A Novel. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.

Pigs in Heaven: A Novel. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.