Alice Walker author page

Alice Walker biography

Alice Walker is an American author, poet, and activist. She is best known for her novel The Color Purple, published in 1982 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction in 1983. Walker’s other novels include Meridian (1976), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), and By the Light of My Father’s Smile (1998).

Walker has published several collections of poetry, such as Once (1968), Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1973), and Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (1984). Her short story collections include In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1973) and You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down (1981).

Walker’s work often explores themes of race, gender, and social justice. She coined the term “womanist” in her 1982 collection In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. In addition to her literary achievements, Walker has been recognised for her activism, particularly in the areas of civil rights and women’s rights.

In 2006, Walker’s papers were acquired by Emory University’s Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. The Color Purple was adapted into a film in 1985 and a stage musical in 2005. Walker remains the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.