Barbara Kingsolver's World

One of the most insightful—and prolific—of American literary scholars, Linda Wagner-Martin here offers an excellent eco-critical reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s work, written in Wagner-Martin’s lucid, accessible prose. Focusing on what she calls ‘the reciprocity between the human and the natural,’ Wagner-Martin discusses natural elements even in those Kingsolver works—such as The Lacuna —that are usually viewed as political novels. She is especially good on Kingsolver’s new and ‘strangely foreboding’ Flight Behavior.

One of the most insightful—and prolific—of American literary scholars, Linda Wagner-Martin here offers an excellent eco-critical reading of Barbara Kingsolver’s work, written in Wagner-Martin’s lucid, accessible prose. Focusing on what she calls ‘the reciprocity between the human and the natural,’ Wagner-Martin discusses natural elements even in those Kingsolver works—such as The Lacuna —that are usually viewed as political novels. She is especially good on Kingsolver’s new and ‘strangely foreboding’ Flight Behavior.

In this landmark study, Linda Wagner-Martin traces Barbara Kingsolver’s evolution into an author whose work fully synthesizes fiction and ecology. Reading Kingsolver’s essays and interviews alongside her novels, Wagner-Martin delves into what it means to be an ecological writer. Scholars will find Barbara Kingsolver’s World to be foundational, and general readers will appreciate its insights into the writings of a fascinating living author.

Linda Wagner-Martin is Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emerita at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is the author or editor of over 50 books, including Toni Morrison, A Literary Life (Macmillan, 2015), The Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States (ed. with Cathy N. Davidson, Oxford University Press, 1995), and Maya Angelou: Adventurous Spirit (Bloomsbury 2015, 2021 2nd ed). She is the recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Hubbell Medal from the Modern Language Association. She has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, at Rollins College, at Bellagio and at Bogliasco. She has served as president of The Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society and the American Literature Division of the Modern Language Association. She has won many teaching awards, particularly at Michigan State University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.