Alice Walker

Biography of Alice Walker

By

Jone Johnson Lewis

Dates:

(

February 9

, 1944 - )

Occupation:

writer, activist

Known

for:

author

of

The

Color

Purple

;

Pulitzer

Prize;

recovering

work

of

Zora

Neale Hurston; work against female circumcision

Alice Walker, best known perhaps as the author of

The Color Purple

, was the eighth

child of Georgia sharecroppers. After a childhood accident blinded her in one eye, she

went on to become

valedictorian of

her

local school, and attend Spelman College and

Sarah Lawrence College on scholarships, graduating in 1965.

Alice Walker volunteered in the voter registration drives of the 1960s in Georgia, and

went to work after college in the Welfare Department in New York City.

Alice Walker

married

in 1967 (and divorced

in 1976). Her

first book of poems came

out in 1968 and her first novel just after her daughter's birth in 1970.

Alice

Walker's

early

poems,

novels

and

short

stories

dealt

with

themes

familiar

to

readers

of

her

later

works:

rape,

violence,

isolation,

troubled

relationships,

multi- generational perspectives, sexism and racism.

When

The Color Purple

came out

in 1982, Walker became known to an even wider

audience.

Her

Pulitzer

Prize

and

the

movie

by

Steven

Spielberg

brought

both

fame

and

controversy.

She

was

widely

criticized

for

negative

portrayals

of

men

in

The

Color Purple,

though

many critics admitted that

the

movie presented

more simplistic

negative pictures than the book's more nuanced portrayals.

Walker

also

published

a

biography

of

the

poet,

Langston

Hughes,

and

worked

to

recover

and

publicize

the

nearly-lost

works

of

writer

Zora

Neale

Hurston

.

She's

credited with introducing the word

In

1989

and

1992,

in

two

books,

The

Temple

of

My

Familiar

and

Possessing

the

Secret

of

Joy

,

Walker

took

on

the

issue

of

female

circumcision

in

Africa,

which

brought

further controversy:

was Walker a cultural

imperialist to criticize a different

culture?

Her

works are known

for their portrayals of the

African

American

woman's

life. She

depicts vividly the sexism, racism and poverty that make that life often a struggle. But

she also portrays as part of that

life, the strengths of

family, community, self-worth,

and spirituality.