The theme of social upheaval pervades Barbara Kingsolver’s fiction, from the rights of native American Indians in Pigs in Heaven to the impact of colonialism in the Belgian Congo in The Poisonwood Bible. In 1997 she established the Bellwether Prize in support of writers who tackle themes of social justice. Kingsolver, 54, was born in Maryland, US, grew up in Kentucky and spent some of her childhood in Africa. She worked as a journalist before she published her first novel, The Bean Trees in 1988. Her 12 books include novels, short stories and essays, while a memoir Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recalls the year her family lived on local food. Kingsolver is married with two children and lives on a farm in south-west Virginia.

Can you remember the first novel you read?

My father read me Oliver Twist.

What is your daily writing routine?

I’ve been a mother for exactly as long as I’ve been a writer. I work while the children are at school.

Who is your perfect reader?

One who reads my books more than once. You spend years making every sentence perfect so it takes years to get everything out of it.

What books are on your bedside table?

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard, The Joke by Milan Kundera and House of Fortune Street by Margot Livesey.

What is the strangest thing you’ve done when researching a book?

For The Poisonwood Bible I spent an afternoon in the venomous reptiles house of Cincinnati Zoo, waiting to see the inside of a green mamba’s mouth, which is sky blue.

How do you relax?

Cooking, weeding my vegetable garden, knitting, walking.

What are you most proud of writing?

My latest book The Lacuna. It required me to overcome more impossibilities than the others.

What would you change about yourself?

I would like to pay less attention to what people think. Frances Moore Lappé said: “When your heart is pounding don’t think of it as fear, think of it as inner applause.”

What book changed your life?

Doris Lessing’s Children of Violence series. I was about 16 when I read the first one. I understood for the first time that fiction is a powerful tool for making people more worldly and empathetic.

Barbara Kingsolver’s latest novel is ‘The Lacuna’ (Faber)