FRIDAY READING FORUM

Marc Thomas and Leigh E. Rich

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

An almost instant classic of international dimensions since its 1998 publication, The Poisonwood Bible introduces a missionary family from Georgia who emigrate to the Belgian Congo of 1959. The story of religious American expatriates encountering an alien civilization reveals barriers of language and culture, devolving eventually into a biblical mistranslation that suggests Jesus is “poison”!

The Friday Reading Forum, established by literature professor Carol Andrews, began in 2023 and aims to examine challenging texts in a collegial group setting.

Marc Thomas is a retired librarian, bureaucrat, archivist, and poet. He is the author of Surviving Fragments and Talking to the Machines and Other Poems, two collections of poetry that deal with artificial intelligence and the pandemic sequestration. He is a frequent facilitator for book clubs at TLC.

Leigh E. Rich is a professor in GSU’s Department of Health Sciences. She earned her PhD in health and behavioral sciences at the University of Colorado. She has hosted the WRUU radio program Listening to Literature.