The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel

The Poisonwood Bible follows the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, an evangelical Baptist missionary who takes his family to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They arrive believing they have everything needed from home, but discover that their possessions and beliefs are fundamentally transformed by African soil. The novel unfolds against the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, including the murder of its first elected prime minister and a CIA coup. Orleanna Price reconstructs her husband's role in Western involvement in Africa, while grappling with her own losses and questions of culpability. The story is also told by their four daughters—Rachel, twins Leah and Adah, and five-year-old Ruth May—who arrive with racial preconceptions formed in 1950s Georgia and are marked in different ways by their father's mission and by Africa itself. Spanning three decades, the novel traces one family's tragic undoing and reconstruction, exploring moral risk and personal responsibility as each daughter finds her own path.