Each day as we count down to the April 18 announcement of the Minnesota Book Awards, we highlight one of the thirty-two finalists. Today we feature 2015 General Nonfiction finalist Nancy Koester.
The story of a writer and activist guided by her faith
Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life by Nancy Koester
Published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Category Sponsor: Minnesota AFL-CIO
Photo of Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an abolitionist guided by her Christian faith. Her 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin converted readers by the thousands to the anti-slavery movement and served notice that the days of slavery were numbered. Overnight Stowe became a celebrity, but to defenders of slavery she was the devil in petticoats. Most writing about Stowe treats her as a literary figure and social reformer while downplaying her Christian faith. Nancy Koester’s biography highlights Stowe’s faith as central to her life—both her public fight against slavery and her own personal struggle through deep grief to find a gracious God. Having meticulously researched Stowe’s own writings, both published and un-published, Koester traces Stowe’s faith pilgrimage from evangelical Calvinism through spiritualism to Anglican spirituality in a flowing, compelling narrative.
Excerpt from Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life:
Stowe was a prolific writer, producing books, magazine articles, devotional works, poems, and children’s stories. After doing battle with slavery she turned her attention to another conflict, a spiritual one, with the religion of her father Lyman Beecher. His New England Calvinism helped to fire her moral indignation against slavery and gave her the audacity to call a nation to repentance.
In addition to her work as a writer, Nancy Koester is an ordained Lutheran minister and spiritual director. She teaches religion at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.
The reviews are in:
“This is a beautifully written tale that helps the reader understand what compelled one of America’s most important literary figures to fight for what was right.” – MN Book Awards judge
“It is impossible to underestimate the importance of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was in her lifetime the most famous and influential woman in the United States, bar none. But she has been largely forgotten today. Nancy Koester’s comprehensive biography brings Stowe’s personal story to life for a new generation while re-creating the fierce religious and cultural battles that inspired her to write the Great American Novel that helped turn the course of American history.” — Debby Applegate, Pulitzer Prize winner for The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher.
“An accessible and absorbing interpretive biography…Koester engagingly and intelligently discusses each major novel, each family crisis, each journey, and each spiritual change, including a fluctuating interest in spiritualism after the deaths of two of [Stowe’s] sons, without a whiff of academic fustiness. A top-notch read.” – Booklist
Video: Interview with Nancy Koester from Eerdmans Publishing
Blog link:
“Harriet Beecher Stowe lived at our house while I wrote her biography — or so it seemed.” Read more about Nancy Koester’s writing of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Join us at the Awards Gala!
Award winners will be announced at the 27th Annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala on Saturday, April 18 at the historic St. Paul Union Depot. The opening reception begins at 7 p.m., followed by the awards ceremony at 8 p.m. Tickets are $50 and are available by visiting www.thefriends.org/gala.
Have you read Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Spiritual Life? What are your thoughts? We welcome your comments!