“THE POISONWOOD BIBLE” TO INSPIRE DISCUSSIONS
AMONG MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE STUDENTS, FACULTY

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – "The Poisonwood Bible," an acclaimed novel by Barbara Kingsolver about a Baptist missionary who takes his wife and four daughters to the Belgian Congo in the late 1950s, has been chosen as this year's common reading for first-year students at Mount Holyoke College.

Since 2000, Mount Holyoke’s new students have taken part in a common reading as part of the College’s orientation program, receiving copies of the selected book during the summer and participating in discussions after their arrival on campus. “The common read assists new students with their transition into the College community, by enabling them to discover connections with other students and to the intellectual life of the campus,” said Rochelle Calhoun, the former acting dean of the college and new executive director of the Alumnae Association, who was instrumental in the choice of the book. Previous common readings have been "Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich (2002), "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez (2001), and "Refuge" by Terry Tempest Williams (2000).

Faculty members are being encouraged to incorporate the book into their courses, and faculty members will lead a panel discussion on the book. This year, alumnae are being urged to join the incoming class by reading "The Poisonwood Bible" in MHC clubs and alumnae book clubs.

"The Poisonwood Bible" sets the story of Nathan Price and his family against the backdrop of Congo's fight for independence from Belgium and the fall of its first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, at the hands of rival Congolese politicians, the Belgian government, and the CIA.

"The Congo permeates 'The Poisonwood Bible,' and yet this is a novel that is just as much about America, a portrait, in absentia, of the nation that sent the Prices to save the souls of a people for whom it felt only contempt, people who already, in the words of a more experienced missionary, 'have a world of God's grace in their lives, along with a dose of hardship that can kill a person entirely,'" wrote Verlyn Klinkenborg in a New York Times book review. "The Congolese are not savages who need saving, the Price women find, and there is nothing passive in their tolerance of missionaries."

"It is a compelling narrative that is relevant to many disciplines; I enjoyed it very much," said MHC president Joanne V. Creighton.

"Like most artists, I'm wary about categorizing my work - particularly this novel," Kingsolver writes on her Web site, www.barbarakingsolver.com. "It's very large. It's political and domestic, symbolic and epic and, I hope, also a heck of a good read." "The Poisonwood Bible" was chosen as the American Booksellers Book of the Year, and as one of the best books of 1998 by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Village Voice. It was a Pulitzer Prize runner-up.

Mount Holyoke College is one of the nation's finest liberal arts colleges. Rigorous academics, an internationally diverse student body, and integration of cutting-edge technologies through all aspects of the Mount Holyoke curriculum create an environment that prepares women to become leaders in an increasingly complex world.