A new novel by Barbara Kingsolver is coming later this year.
Harper will publish the author’s Partita in the fall, the press announced in a news release. It calls the book “a deeply moving new novel about life and art from one of America’s greatest writers.”
Kingsolver made her literary debut in 1987 with the coming-of-age novel The Bean Trees, and followed it up two years later with Homeland and Other Stories. She had a breakout hit in 1998 with The Poisonwood Bible, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Demon Copperhead, inspired by Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Partita will center on Livia Cable, a pianist who is contacted by an old lover who wants to see her again, and tries to decide whether to take him up on his offer. “With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver’s unforgettable new novel reflects on class barriers, the risks of ambition, and the timeless love affair between life and art,” Harper says.
Kingsolver said in a statement, “All my life, I’ve loved both language and music in a hungry, passionate way that happily entwines them in my brain. A novel about a classical musician never occurred to me, though, because of the sorts of people I write about. In the rural place where I grew up, folk art traditions are strong, but so-called ‘high art’ seems to belong to fancier people, not us….Why is our culture of arts divided this way, and what are the costs to all of us? I found it rich territory for fiction, and I hope readers will agree.”
Partita is slated for publication on Oct. 6.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
