The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

"The Bean Trees is the work of a visionary. . . . It leaves you open-mouthed and smiling."  -- Los Angeles Times

An acclaimed bestseller that has come to be regarded as an American classic, The Bean Trees is the novel that launched Barbara Kingsolver's remarkable literary career. Kingsolver has gone on to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, Demon Copperhead, and is the recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguish Contribution to American Letters

The Bean Trees is the charming, engrossing tale of rural Kentucky native Taylor Greer, who only wants to get away from her roots and avoid getting pregnant. She succeeds, but inherits a three-year-old Native American girl named Turtle along the way, and together, from Oklahoma to Arizona, half-Cherokee Taylor and her charge search for a new life in the West. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in seemingly empty places.

Barbara Kingsolver's fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction publications have been widely translated and awarded numerous literary prizes. She founded the PEN/Bellwether Award and received the National Humanities Medal in 2000, the country's highest accolade for service to the arts. She studied and worked as a biologist before embarking on her writing career. She and her husband own and operate a farm in southern Appalachia.