Barbara Kingsolver wins Women’s Prize For Fiction With Appalachian Novel ‘Demon Copperhead’

LONDON — American author Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead,” a Dickens-inspired story about a boy’s struggle against the odds in an area of America ravaged by opioid addiction, won the prestigious Women’s Prize for Fiction on Wednesday.

At a ceremony in London, Kingsolver’s Appalachian coming-of-age story was named the recipient of the 30,000 pounds ($38,000) prize.

Kingsolver, 68, also received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for literature for the book, which relocates “David Copperfield” from Charles Dickens to contemporary southwest Virginia, the author’s home state.

Kingsolver had already won the Women’s Prize in 2010 for “The Lacuna,” therefore this was her second triumph.

She accepted the prize and remarked, “Lightning strikes twice.”

Kingsolver stated that she wanted to share tales from the Appalachian Mountains region of the United States because it is frequently ignored or dismissed as “just a joke.”

According to Kingsolver, “we’re the last group of Americans that progressive people are permitted to laugh at.” And it has made us angry.

Kingsolver, 68, also received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for literature for the book.

Kingsolver has a history of including social themes in her books, such as “The Bean Trees” and “The Poisonwood Bible,” she was instrumental in creating the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Last year, Oprah Winfrey selected “Demon Copperhead” for her book club.

The Women’s Prize judging panel’s head, journalist Louise Minchin, called the winning book “a towering, deeply powerful and significant book.”

From addiction and poverty to family, love, and the power of friendship and art, “Demon Copperhead” covers universal topics, according to Minchin. According to critics, it has a triumphant emotional impact and will endure the test of time.

According to Kingsolver, the book was inspired by a desire “to tell the story of this place where I live and what has been done to it.”

“Appalachia has been so particularly exploited, almost treated as an internal colony,” she said, calling the opioid crisis “one more turn in this exploitation trade.”

Kingsolver, 68, also received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for literature for the book.

“Telling this narrative is difficult. And I believed it was completely impossible for years. Then it occurred to me that Charles Dickens had done exactly that. Why not share his story in my own words and at my place?

According to Kingsolver, the renowned novelist, who documented the extremes of poverty and wealth in Victorian Britain, wouldn’t object if she used his plot.

She remarked that I adored his rage and sensed him telling me to do this.

Kingsolver defeated five other Women’s Prize nominees, including Laline Paull’s dolphin drama “Pod” and Maggie O’Farrell’s Italian Renaissance story “The Marriage Portrait.”

The award, which was established in 1996, is available to all female English-language authors. Zadie Smith, Tayari Jones, and Susanna Clarke have all won before. A Canadian-American novelist, Ruth Ozeki won the award the previous year for her work on “The Book of Form and Emptiness.”

SOURCE – (AP)