“The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingslover – Colony of Turmoil

Barbara Kingslover's voice has been resonating high and loud for over a decade now as she put her vast life experience to good use as an author, touching the sorts of depths in her works many of her peers shy away from.

The Poisonwood Bible is a novel many consider to be her magnum opus (so far), and it follows an evangelical Baptist and his family as they set out on a mission to the Belgian Congo amidst its immense political turmoil in 1959.

Barbara Kingslover Visits the Belgian Congo

Today it might simply seem like a strange phase humanity went through, but back in its heyday colonialism was, for many people, more than a simple chapter in our collective history; it was a way of life, one carrying with it innumerable consequences, some which are still palpable in our very own present day.

In what might perhaps be her greatest novel to date, titled The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingslover ventures into a time and place few authors seem keen on visiting: the Belgian Congo of 1959, at the height of its political, religious and racial turmoil.

The plot itself follows Nathan Price, an evangelical Baptist who decides to undertake a mission to the Belgian Congo, taking his family along with him, in hopes of bringing the light and word of God to place which sorely needs it.

They stuff their bags with everything they assume they might need from home, from holy scriptures to plant and vegetable seeds, and set out to postcolonial Africa, marking the beginning of a grand adventure which will span the course of three decades.

When the family arrives at their destination, their hopes and illusions are quickly shattered as the reality of their situation begins to dawn on them. The African soil is inhospitable to them and all they brought from home, but they soon realize it's the least of their worries.

The entire country is in a state of total upheaval, with political, racial and religious conflicts flaring left and right, with the people trying to fight for their independence from their Western colonizers, hell-bent on maintaining their power and sapping the country of its economic capabilities for their own benefits.

Amidst all this, the Price family are themselves shattered and rebuilt when faced with a side of humanity they could only suspect existed.

The Land Torn Apart in The Poisonwood Bible

While I can't exactly back up what I'm about to say with any kind of concrete evidence, it feels to me the topic of colonialism has a certain taboo aspect to it in the Western world, as if we're a little too keen to sweep our own wrongdoings under the rug.

Most of us have come to see it as a bit of history which is as significant to our identity as something our ancestors did thousands of years ago.

However, the victims of the Western world's imperialism definitely haven't forgotten these wrongdoings, and it felt to me like above everything else, Kingslover wants to show us just how deep and devastating the consequences of colonialism are.

Indeed, while the Price family themselves are our vehicles through this story, the world itself felt like it took over as a focal point as I got deeper into the book... at least for me.

This book is fairly long, and Kingslover does take her time on many occasions to describe settings, the people in them, what they've experienced, what they are going through, and what the future might one day hold for them.

She does an absolutely remarkable job at detailing the ways in which the people are suffering at the hands of their colonial oppressors, and I think her own experience living in Africa shines brightest during these passages.

Additionally, it's quite clear Kingslover has done a tremendous amount of research about the Belgian Congo, and I almost felt like I got a lecture on the country's internal state from 1959 and the following decades.

She knows how to keep these educative excursions on a more surface level while concisely feeding us the important information, and by the end of it I felt like I had enough of it to write an essay of my own.

A Family Reborn

While teaching us heaps about the Belgian Congo from all sorts of perspectives, Kingslover never loses sight of the Price family, constantly using them to demonstrate certain realities about the content, and as an exploratory vessel to push our adventures further. At least, this is what they felt like to me at the start of the story.

However, as I progressed further and further into the book, they began to feel increasingly important, real and human. They aren't simply there to witness and experience events, but rather, to absorb them and be transformed as a result.

This feels quite obvious when they all first arrive on the continent and quickly become disillusioned with their idea of this religious mission, and it happens on a more subtle level throughout the rest of the book.

While personally-speaking, the main attraction for me was the historical lesson about the Belgian Congo and African colonialism, I do objectively recognize how well-directed the character development is from start to finish.

Our main cast, the Price family, are constantly evolving in function of the events they are going through, becoming less and less averse to changing themselves and their beliefs as they get a better taste of reality.

If we compare them at the start to who they are in the final pages, we'd be hard-pressed to think these are the same characters.

The surrounding cast of characters is no less important I would argue, and though most of them are quite understandably not as well-developed as the Price family, they have more than enough depth for whatever roles they are destined to fell in the story.

More often than not, these secondary characters end up being teachers for our protagonists, and their immense variety (as well as excellent portrayal) play an important role in not only bringing the world to life with their colour, but also in helping the Price family transform into their true selves.

The Final Verdict

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover is a profound novel with some complicated and heavy themes, many of them touching on the very real darkness swelling inside some human beings.

It offers a unique, and frankly, much-needed window into African colonialism and the far-reaching consequences it left its victims with, all through the eyes of a relatable family whose book-long transformation is written exquisitely.

If you enjoy family saga books which take place across decades, and the Belgian Congo sounds like a topic you'd be interested in, then I think nothing should stop you from picking up this novel, already considered by many a modern classic.

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Barbara Kingslover Personal site Barbara Kingslover is an American poet, essayist and novelist who came from the rural streets of Kentucky. She has degrees in biology from the DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and spent some time as a freelance writer before becoming a full-fledged author, giving us some rather interesting works such as The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.