Barbara Kingsolver discusses how love changes throughout her life

Author Barbara Kingsolver, aged 71, was born in Maryland, USA and earned a music scholarship to DePauw University in Indiana, the source said. She later turned to journalism before publishing her debut novel The Bean Trees in 1988. In 2025 she established the Higher Ground Women’s Recovery Residence in Lee County, Virginia, where the story of her latest book Partita is set. Kingsolver now lives in Virginia with her second husband and their two children.

Her bibliography includes The Poisonwood Bible, The Lacuna and the 2022 novel Demon Copperhead, which received the Pulitzer, the James Tait Black prize and the Women’s prize for fiction, according to the interview. The author has also been recognised for her contributions to literature over several decades.

When asked about her happiest moments, Kingsolver replied, "Right after the births of my children. Those hormones are strong medicine: they erase all memory of recent gruelling events and crown you goddess, author of divine creation." She said her greatest fear is "Being on a transatlantic flight without a good book." Her earliest memory, she recalled, involved teaching herself to read at age three and recognising the word “orange”.

Kingsolver said she most deplores the trait of "Refusing to take responsibility" and added, "I can forgive anything, if the offender will just say, ‘I did that. It was wrong, and I’m sorry.’ I can’t understand why some people fight it so hard. Especially those of the male persuasion." She described herself in three words as "Adventurous. Hopeful. Grateful."

She explained that love feels like "breaking the speed limit" at 16 and later "like a warm bath". Regarding a living person she despises, Kingsolver hinted that the individual is widely disliked but did not name them. She said her worst job was cleaning houses where families called her "the cleaning girl". When asked about intimacy, she answered, "Exactly as often as I like." She also disclosed that in the 1980s she was phone‑tapped and surveilled by the FBI for over four years because of her legal human‑rights work, and she added a wish for "a happy marriage" alongside sex, money or fame.