The Poisonwood Bible

In 1959, as the Congo (then the Belgian Congo) moves toward independence amid growing tension, Baptist minister Nathan Price brings his wife Orleanna and their four daughters from Georgia in the United States to the village of Kilanga deep in the jungle to preach. They carry seeds, cake mix and the Bible, believing they can sow the gospel and "civilization" together in this "poisonwood" wilderness. Yet the minister's arrogance and ignorance of local language, culture and political reality quickly plunge the family into isolation and hardship: he stubbornly tries to baptize local children, scorns local ways, and his rigidity exacts an ever heavier price from his wife and daughters in a foreign land. The novel is narrated in turn by five women: the mother Orleanna, steady and long-suffering; the eldest daughter Rachel, concerned only with her own comfort and propriety; Leah, one of the twins, who takes her father's faith as doctrine; Adah, who dissects everything with cool, sharp reasoning; and the youngest, Ruth May, who watches this strange world through a child's eyes. The same events look utterly different through these five perspectives. The story spans more than thirty years, from Congo's independence and coups to the daughters' scattered lives in America, Africa and Europe: some lose themselves in marriage and faith, some return to Africa another way, some bear guilt in silence. It is both a finely wrought family epic and a historical parable about faith, arrogance and atonement: when a person or a nation intervenes in others' lives in the name of "salvation," the price is often paid by the most innocent.