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Book Review of The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible
reviewed on


Yhis is a story told by the wife and 4 daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgina Congo in 1959. They carry with them everythin they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it-from garden seeds to Scripture-is calamitously transformed on Africn soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of 3 decades in postcolonial Africa. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the 20th century; the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy.