Barbara Kingsolver's Inspiration.

The very first pages of Kingsolver's novel are dedicated to her own Author's note. Within the page and a half of writing, Kingsolver expresses her gratitude to many of her friends and family for helping her piece together the novel by giving her valuable tidbits of information regarding Africa and the Congo/ Zaire. After reading the novel and then again analyzing her authors note, I believe I have a strong premonition as to why she felt compelled to write this novel.

In my opinion, Kingsolver chose to write this novel to open the eyes of human beings all across the world, in an attempt to show the reader a destination so unique, so desolate, and so wondrous. As written in her author's note, Kingsolver has traveled all across Africa, witnessing new cultures, regions, weather, people, among other things. I believe her travels have influenced her writing because she feels that these small tokens of a culture or region need to be shared with the world. Furthermore, Kingsolver mentions that her parents went to the Congo to help the sick, working as medical and public-health workers. Although Mother and Father starkly contrast with the author's parents, it is evident that Kingsolver was inspired to write about this journey from America to the Congo due to her families' travels. By adding different personalities and character traits, Kingsolver managed to differentiate her own travels to the Price family travels. In this instance, Kingsolver takes a personal inspiration and creates two characters with similar backgrounds but freely lets Mother and Father take on completely different traits than those of her parents.

For American's, I believe that Kingsolver attempted to reach both adults and young adults on a deeper level. I believe that she was inspired by the amount of American's unaware of just how different housing, living, eating, and drinking are in a place such as Congo. For instance, the young girls describe the scenery as so vastly different than America's fast-paced and busy world. To Rachel, Adah, Leah and Ruth May, the Congo is a whole new experience that they all never truthfully were used to.  For this reason, Kingsolver most likely felt the need to craft a novel that captures these reactions of young adults such as Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May in order to show the emotions of how a teenager or child grasps such a culture shock.