Barbara Kingsolver is an author and freelance writer. She has written numerous novels, including The Poisonwood Bible (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize, and winner of the national book award of South Africa), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (winner of the James Beard award), and The Lacuna (winner of the Orange Prize). She has contributed to more than 50 literary anthologies, and has had reviews and articles published in major newspapers and magazines. Kingsolver was named one the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, received the National Humanities Medal in 2000, and was awarded the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2011. She established the PEN / Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.