The Poisonwood Bible.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Review

Another compelling story with a strong political message is Barbara Kingsolver's new novel, The Poisonwood Bible (HarperCollins, 1998). Set in the Belgian Congo, which by the end of the story is renamed Zaire, it is the tragic parable of a missionary family from Bethlehem, Georgia--the Reverend Nathan Price, his wife, Orleanna, and their four young, blonde daughters--who come to Africa to convert the benighted natives to Christianity. The hubris of their mission is captured by the book's title, which is based on an error of translation. At the end of each of his sermons, the Reverend Price yells out, "Jesus is bangala!" He mispronounces the word for "great," inadvertently substituting the word for "Poisonwood tree."

Things go downhill quickly for the Price family. They fail to adapt their methods of growing food to the African climate and nearly starve to death. They suffer through floods, drought, malaria, and a vicious attack by ants. They don't bother to make friends with the villagers who could help them, and so are left to fend for themselves. Finally, they are driven out when the village chief holds an election in the church to see whether the locals prefer Jesus or their traditional gods. Jesus loses, 11 to 56. Not all of the Prices escape with their lives.

Kingsolver herself lived in Africa as a child, when her parents were health care workers in what was then the Congo. She draws on this experience, as well as a mountain of scholarly research, to write a book she's been waiting to write all her life, she says in the introduction.

I was bothered, at first, by the five different voices she uses to tell the story--in the opening chapters I found the children's voices cloying--and by the sometimes heavy-handed political message. But I was quickly drawn in. I loved...