The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum’s Hoosier Authors Book Club continues its sixth year with a virtual meeting at 7 p.m. May 13 via a Zoom discussion. Books are currently available for checkout at the Carriage House.
The book for this meeting is “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver. Published in 1998, this best-selling novel is about a missionary family who move from Georgia to the village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo. The novel’s title refers to Bible Errata. The father of the family creates his own “misprint” of the Bible. He concludes his sermons with the Kikongo expression “Tata Jesus in bangala” with the intent of saying “Jesus is most precious.” In his hurried mispronunciation, he actually says, “Jesus is poisonwood.” The book follows the life of this family as they adapt to life in Africa and the political turmoil of the Belgian Congo. “The Poisonwood Bible” was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 1999, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Copies of the book are courtesy of the Indiana Humanities Novel Conversations program. All discussions are free and open to the public.
For more information about the Hoosier Authors Book Club and to register for the Zoom link, visit https://www.ben-hur.com/programs/hoosier-authors-book-club/.
