Pulitzer Prize winner

Childhood in a world of the marginalized

Barbara Kingsolver was inspired by Charles Dickens.(Bild: ©Evan Kafka, All Rights Reserved)

Like her role model Charles Dickens, US writer Barbara Kingsolver's "Demon Copperhead" touches on so many levels.

No, the similarity of the names is no coincidence: Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver was inspired by an immortal literary classic for her novel "Demon Copperhead" - and in doing so created a great work herself.

She transferred Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield" from the slums of 19th century London to rural Virginia in the 1990s and 2000s. The home of the "rednecks", rich in nature, but equally rich in social injustice. A place of the left behind, for whom the American dream is nothing but a drug-fueled nightmare.

Barbara Kingsolver: Demon Copperhead. Translated from the English by Dirk van Gunsteren. dtv, 864 pages(Bild: dtv Verlag)

As with Dickens, Kingsolver's title character, who is actually called Damon Fields and owes his ominous nickname to his red hair, is born into a world of poverty. One that, like Dickens, leaves its children with few opportunities.

His overburdened mother dies of an overdose, he goes hungry in "foster homes" and has to work on tobacco plantations. When a hint of light shines into his life, the darkness strikes again. And he is swallowed up by this country, through which the addiction to opioids spreads like an epidemic.

All the pain and injustice would probably be unbearable if this lovable Damon were not so captivating with his unbroken resilience. With empathy and unshakeable humanity despite all the inhumanity he has to experience.

This makes Kingsolver's 800+ page work a truly weighty read that - like Dickens' stories - will resonate and touch you for a long time to come.