【在毒木林中，我們踏出泥濘，尋找救贖】《The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel 》(中譯：毒木聖經)

榮獲美國人文藝術領域最高榮耀「國家人文勳章」
美國當代作家芭芭拉‧金索夫(Barbara Kingsolver)必讀代表作

當普萊斯牧師夫婦和他們的四個女兒來到比屬剛果，時值1959年，戰後的非洲大陸瀰漫著對未來的不確定感和緩慢的復甦氣息，普萊斯牧師是個信仰堅定的人，希望在這片仍尚未被大肆開發的土地，散播救贖的種子。

但他們從原生地帶來的，不僅僅只有信仰而已。在這塊陌生異地，他的妻子奧利安娜再也無法抑止多年以來內心的恐懼和怨懟，而她四個個性迥異的女兒，也逐漸查覺到她們忽略、甚至是壓抑多年的悲傷、憤怒和渴求。

在剛果炙熱又潮濕的空氣中，所有的植物怒放生長，萬物看似循著某種不可見的道路循環著，在人類到來之前就是如此，在「文明」行臨之前也是如此。依循自然之道生存在這塊土地上的住民，即便沒有接受西方文明的洗禮，即使基督宗教不曾進入他們的內心，透過家族和傳統文化的牽引，他們也明白生命的消長與殘酷。

普萊斯牧師認為蠻荒之地的土著需要透過信仰來獲得靈魂的救贖，但是他最終發現，這些土著不需要他所謂的「幫助」，而他自己的家庭卻陷入近乎崩潰的危機。對他的妻子和女兒們來說，這趟南下的旅程不但逼迫她們正視自己的脆弱，也探觸內心最不想面對的醜惡。

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.

Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver's previous work, and extends this beloved writer's vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.