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Alice Walker

Alice Walker is an acclaimed African American novelist, poet, essayist and activist born in 1944 in Georgia. She came from a sharecropping family, but her parents valued education. Walker faced adversity as a child, including being shot in the eye. She attended Spelman College and became involved in the Civil Rights movement. Walker published her first short story in 1965 and has since written influential works of fiction, poetry and essays that explore themes of feminism, racism and social justice. Her novel The Color Purple, published in 1982, won critical acclaim and was later adapted into a film and musical, cementing her legacy as a renowned writer.

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500 views

Alice Walker

Alice Walker is an acclaimed African American novelist, poet, essayist and activist born in 1944 in Georgia. She came from a sharecropping family, but her parents valued education. Walker faced adversity as a child, including being shot in the eye. She attended Spelman College and became involved in the Civil Rights movement. Walker published her first short story in 1965 and has since written influential works of fiction, poetry and essays that explore themes of feminism, racism and social justice. Her novel The Color Purple, published in 1982, won critical acclaim and was later adapted into a film and musical, cementing her legacy as a renowned writer.

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Santiago1

Vilmarie Santiago Morales


Ellen Pratt
INGL3104
April 13, 2015
Alice Walker
Author, poet, essayist and activist, Alice Malsenior Walker is a well-known African
American novelist. Born in February 9, 1944 in Putnam County, Georgia where
sharecropping was the family business. The youngest of eight siblings, Alice was lucky
enough to have parents who wanted their children to have an education. An event that stood
with her was being shot in the eye with a BB gun by one of her brothers, leaving her blind
in her right eye and making her conscious and shy. A&E Television Networks wrote,
Although she became high school prom queen and class valedictorian, she continued to
feel like an outsider, creating a passion for reading and writing poetry in solitude. She
began her college education in Spelman College for two years, becoming active in the Civil
Right movement. New Georgia Encyclopedia even informs, She was invited to the home
of Martin Luther King Jr. in recognition of her attendance at the Youth World Peace
Festival in Finland. She switched to Sarah Lawrence College in New York City and later
then graduating in 1965. As well as publishing her first short story that same year.
Her experience in civil rights formed part of her writing, especially in her poetry
like Once, published in 1968. Adding experience to her work was her journey to South
Africa and personal matters like her unwanted pregnancy. Her second volume of poetry
called Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems, emphasize her southern past meanwhile
others challenge the political militancy. Alice most recent volume of poems was, A Poem
Traveled Down My Arm, published in 2005.

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Also known for her incredible writing is her work on short stories and essay. One of
her first short stories was "To Hell with Dying," which even captured the attention of the
great Langston Hughes. Writing many other short fictions like her collection, You Can't
Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories, emphasizing such topics like rape and abortion. In
2000 published a third collection of stories, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart.
She also published several volumes of essays and autobiographical reflections. In the 1983
collection called In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose, she presents to her
readers to a new way of seeing the term feminist. The collection won the Lillian Smith
Book Award in 1984. Other essay collections include The Same River Twice: Honoring
the Difficult (1996), which features Walker's struggle with Lyme disease during the
filming of The Color Purple and many others. But her best work yet would be The Color
Purple, 1982 which was transformed into a movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, in 1985.
The novel being about abuse and loneliness that a girl named Celie suffered after being
abused by her stepfather. She is forced to marry a widowed farmer with three children. Yet
her deepest hopes are realized with the help of a loving community of women, including
her husband's mistress, Shug Avery, and Celie's sister, Nettie. Celie learns to see herself as a
confident woman, a healthy and valuable part of the universe. Also being turned into a
musical and premiering at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta in 2004 and opened on Broadway
in 2005.
In conclusion, Alice Walker has enlightened the world with her empowering writing
and ability to entertain with her vast literature. Not only did she participate in defending
womens rights and for blacks in general but combined it with her writing, sending a
message in every way possible. She created a legacy of prestigious honor besides the
obstacles in her life, making her an admiring human being.

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Work Cited
Alice Walker." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2015.
Whitted, Qiana. "Alice Walker (b. 1944)." New Georgia Encyclopedia. 12 August
2014. Web. 31 March 2015.

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