Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955, in a rural area of eastern Kentucky. She found Kentucky particularly limiting during her youth, believing she only had two choices - to be a "farmer or a farmer's wife." She began writing as a child, keeping a journal from the age of eight and writing stories and essays as a young woman.
Kingsolver left Kentucky to attend college at DePauw University in Indiana, where she majored in biology. However, her interest in writing never waned, and she took a number of creative writing courses. Kingsolver focused particularly on social activism while in college, becoming involved in numerous protests against the Vietnam War. After graduating from...
