The National Book Foundation will award its annual Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Barbara Kingsolver, it announced in a news release.
Kingsolver made her literary debut in 1987 with The Bean Trees, and followed that up two years later with the short story collection Homeland. Her 1998 novel, The Poisonwood Bible, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an award she would later win for Demon Copperhead. Her most recent work, a children’s book called Coyote’s Wild Home, co-written with daughter Lily Kingsolver and illustrated by Paul Mirocha, was published last year.
“Barbara Kingsolver’s writing embraces the personal and the political, examining complex issues of social justice, exalting the natural world, and exploring progressive social change with care and specificity,” Ruth Dickey, the foundation’s executive director, said. “For Kingsolver, writing is a tool for community activism—a way of shining a light on some of the most intricate environmental and social injustices of our time, and an art form through which she can share stories of her beloved Appalachia with the world.”
The Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was established in 1998 to “recognize a lifetime of literary achievement.” Previous winners include Art Spiegelman, Toni Morrison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Edmund White, and Rita Dove.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
