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Barbara Ellen Kingsolver (born April 8, 1955) is an American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo; and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead.[1][2] Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award in 2011 and the National Humanities Medal. After winning for The Lacuna in 2010 and Demon Copperhead in 2023, Kingsolver became the first author to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice.[3][4] Since 1993, each one of her book titles have been on the New York Times Best Seller list.[5]
Kingsolver was raised in rural Kentucky, lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood, and currently lives in Virginia, in the Appalachia region.[2][6] Kingsolver earned degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. In 2000, the politically progressive Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change".
キングソルバーは1955年にメリーランド州アナポリスでウェンデル・ロイ・キングソルバーとバージニア・リー（旧姓ヘンリー）キングソルバーの娘として生まれたが、ケンタッキー州カーライルで育った。[ 7 ] [ 8 ]キングソルバーが7歳のとき、医師である父親は家族をコンゴのレオポルドヴィル（現在のコンゴ民主共和国キンシャサ）に連れて行った。[ 7 ] [ 9 ]
高校卒業後、キングソルバーはインディアナ州グリーンキャッスルのデポー大学に音楽奨学金を得て入学し、クラシックピアノを専攻した。しかし、「クラシックピアニストは年間6つの求人枠を争わなければならず、残りのピアニストはホテルのロビーで『ブルームーン』を演奏するしかない」と気付き、専攻を生物学に変更した。[ 8 ] [ 2 ]
キングソルバーは大学で活動家として活動し、ベトナム戦争反対の抗議活動に参加した。[ 7 ] 1977年、キングソルバーはファイ・ベータ・カッパ[ 10 ]の優等生として理学士号を取得し、1年間フランスに移住した。1980年、彼女はアリゾナ大学の大学院に入学し[ 8 ] 、生態学と進化生物学の修士号を取得した。[ 11 ] [ 12 ]
1985年、キングソルバーはジョセフ・ホフマンと結婚し、1987年に娘のカミーユを出産した。[ 13 ] [ 14 ] 第一次湾岸戦争中、彼女は娘とともにカナリア諸島のテネリフェ島に1年間移住したが、これは主にアメリカの軍事介入に対する不満が原因だった。[ 15 ] 1992年にアメリカに戻った後、彼女は夫と別居した。[ 14 ]
In 1994, Kingsolver was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University.[16] That same year, she married Steven Lee Hopp, an ornithologist, and their daughter Lily was born in 1996. In 2004, Kingsolver moved with her family to a farm in Washington County, Virginia.[7] In 2008, she received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Duke University, where she delivered a commencement address entitled "How to Be Hopeful".[17]
In the late 1990s, Kingsolver was a founding member of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a rock-and-roll band made up of published writers. Other band members included Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Dave Barry, and Stephen King, and they played for one week during the year. Kingsolver played the keyboard, but is no longer an active member of the band.[18]
In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Kingsolver said, "I never wanted to be famous, and still don't… the universe rewarded me with what I dreaded most". She said she created her own website just to compete with a plethora of fake ones "as a defense to protect my family from misinformation".[19]
Kingsolver lives in the Appalachia area of the United States. She said in 2020 that rural America is generally regarded by artistic elites with "a profound antipathy".[20]
Kingsolver began her full-time writing career in the mid-1980s as a science writer for the University of Arizona, which eventually led to freelance feature writing, including many cover stories for the local alternative weekly, the Tucson Weekly.[8][12] She began her career in fiction writing after winning a short-story contest in a local Phoenix newspaper.[8]
キングソルバーの最初の小説『ビーン・ツリーズ』は1988年に出版され、ケンタッキー州からアリゾナ州へ移住する若い女性が途中で捨てられた子供を養子にするという物語を描いている。彼女は第一子を妊娠中で不眠症に苦しみながら、夜にこの作品を書いた。[ 12 ] 1990年に出版された彼女の次の小説は『ホームランド・アンド・アザー・ストーリーズ』で、文化や祖先の土地の進化から結婚生活の苦悩まで、さまざまなテーマを探求した短編集である。[ 21 ]
小説『アニマル・ドリームズ』も1990年に出版され[ 22 ] 、続いて『ビーン・ツリーズ』の続編である『ピッグス・イン・ヘブン』が1993年に出版された[ 23 ]。キングソルバーが『ピッグス・イン・ヘブン』以降に書いた本はすべてニューヨーク・タイムズのベストセラーリストにランクインしている[ 5 ] 。
1998年に出版された『ポイズンウッド・バイブル』は、彼女の最もよく知られた作品の1つで、アフリカでキリスト教の宣教活動を行うバプテスト派宣教師の妻と娘たちの生活を描いています。 [ 24 ]小説の舞台はキングソルバー自身のコンゴ民主共和国（当時はザイール）での幼少期と多少似ていますが、この小説は自伝ではありません。 [ 7 ]この小説はオプラズ・ブッククラブに選ばれました。 [ 25 ]『ポイズンウッド・バイブル』は南アフリカ国立図書賞を受賞し、ピューリッツァー賞とPEN/フォークナー賞の両方の最終候補に選ばれました。 [ 26 ]
彼女の次の小説は、2000年に出版された『放蕩息子の夏』で、アパラチア山脈南部を舞台としている。[ 27 ] 2000年には、ビル・クリントン米大統領から国家人文科学勲章を授与された。[ 28 ]
キングソルバーは、 9月11日の同時多発テロ後のアメリカによるアフガニスタン爆撃を受けてロサンゼルス・タイムズに論説を寄稿したが、罪のないアフガニスタン人とタリバン政権を混同しているとして広く批判された。彼女はこう書いている。「まるで、小さな男の子たちが『あいつが始めたんだ！』と叫び合い、石を投げ合って次々と目や歯を折っている遊び場に立っているような気分です。誰かの母親が現場に現れて『男の子たち！男の子たち！誰が始めたかなんて問題じゃないわ。人が傷ついているのよ』と言ってくれるのをずっと待っています。」[29] 一部の報道によると、彼女は「裏切り者」と非難されたが、こうした非難から立ち直り、後にそれについて書いた。[ 30 ]
2005 年 4 月より、キングソルバーとその家族は、できる限り地元で生産された食品を食べるよう 1 年間あらゆる努力をしました。[ 31 ]バージニア州の田舎にある農場で暮らしていた彼らは、自分たちの食料の多くを栽培し、残りのほとんどは近所の人や他の地元の農家から入手しました。[ 32 ]キングソルバー、彼女の夫、そして長女は、その 1 年間の経験を、2007 年に出版された著書『Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life 』に記録しました。コーヒーやオリーブオイルなど、地元で入手できない主要な食材については例外を設けましたが、家族は野菜を栽培し、家畜を飼育し、チーズを作り、収穫物の多くを保存しました。[ 31 ] [ 33 ]『Animal, Vegetable, Miracle』は、2008 年のジェームズ・ビアード財団賞を受賞しました。
キングソルバーは2009年に出版された『ラクーナ』で小説執筆に復帰した。キングソルバーは2010年にこの小説で初の女性文学賞を受賞した。 [ 4 ]『ラクーナ』は2010年のオレンジ文学賞を受賞した。[ 34 ]『フライト・ビヘイビア』は2012年に出版された。この作品は環境問題を扱い、地球温暖化がオオカバマダラに及ぼす潜在的な影響を強調している。[ 35 ]
In 2011, Kingsolver was the first ever recipient of the Dayton Literary Peace PrizeRichard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. The newly named award to celebrate the U.S. diplomat who played an instrumental role in negotiating the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995.[36] In 2014, Kingsolver was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Library of Virginia. The award recognizes outstanding and long-lasting contributions to literature by a Virginian.[37] In 2018 the Library of Virginia named her one of the Virginia Women in History.[38]
Unsheltered was published in 2018 and follows two families in Vineland, New Jersey with one in the 1800s and the other in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.[39] Her latest book, published in 2022, is Demon Copperhead. The novel was inspired by David Copperfield and is set in southern Appalachia, dealing with the effects of the opioid crisis on the region's families.[2] In 2023, Demon Copperhead received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction alongside Hernan Diaz's Trust, the first time the award was shared in its history.
Kingsolver is also a published poet and essayist. Two of her essay collections, High Tide in Tucson (1995) and Small Wonder (2003), have been published, and an anthology of her poetry was published in 1998 under the title Another America. A second collection of poetry, entitled How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons) was published in 2020. Her essay "Where to Begin" appears in the anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting (2013), published by W. W. Norton & Company. Her prose poetry also accompanied photographs by Annie Griffiths Belt in a 2002 work titled Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands.[40]
Her major nonfiction works include her 1990 publication Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983[41][2] and 2007's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a description of eating locally.[31] She has also been published as a science journalist in periodicals such as Economic Botany on topics such as desert plants and bioresources.[8][42]
In 2000, Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Named for the bellwether, the literary prize supports writers whose works support positive social change.[7] The award is given to a U.S. citizen for a previously unpublished work of fiction that addresses issues of social justice. The Bellwether Prize is awarded in even-numbered years and includes guaranteed major publication and a cash prize of US$25,000, fully funded by Kingsolver.[43] She has stated that she wanted to create a literary prize to "encourage writers, publishers, and readers to consider how fiction engages visions of social change and human justice".[44] In May 2011, the PEN American Center announced it would take over administration of the prize, to be known as the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.[45]
Kingsolver has written novels in both the first-person and third-person narrative styles, and she frequently employs overlapping narratives.[27]
Kingsolver often writes about places and situations with which she is familiar; many of her stories are based in places she has lived, such as Central Africa, Arizona, and Appalachia. She has stated that her novels are not autobiographical, although there are often commonalities between her life and her work.[7] Her work is often strongly idealistic[8] and has been called a form of activism.[46]
Her characters are frequently written around struggles for social equality, such as the hardships faced by undocumented immigrants, the working poor, and single mothers.[8] Other common themes in her work include the balancing of individuality with the desire to live in a community, and the interaction and conflict between humans and the ecosystems in which they live.[12] Kingsolver has been said to use prose and engaging narratives to make historical events, such as the Congo's struggles for independence, more interesting and engaging for the average reader.[7]
注：キングソルバーは『デーモン・コッパーヘッド』で女性文学賞を受賞し、同賞を2度受賞した最初の人物となった。[ 55 ]
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