Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Winner of the 2023 Women's Prize

Demon Copperhead

Name: Demon Copperhead
ISBN: 0571376479

by Barbara Kingsolver

Recorded edition: Faber & Faber, Limited · 2022 · ISBN 0571376479 · Edition source

Explore the recorded awards, edition information and related books below.

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Book-club discussion

Suggested questions based on the book’s premise and form.

What changes when a Dickens-inspired story is placed in contemporary Appalachia?
How does the novel connect individual circumstances with social and economic structures?

What is this book about?

Demon Copperhead brings the influence of Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield into contemporary Appalachia. Barbara Kingsolver follows a boy growing up in poverty, using this setting to examine class divisions, rural childhood and addiction during the opioid crisis. The novel’s connection with Dickens supplies a literary point of comparison, while its social circumstances belong to modern rural America.

Published in 2022, the book jointly won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and also received the Women’s Prize for Fiction that year. Readers can compare the two prize records below; the shared Pulitzer award is a joint win, not a shortlist result.