Alice Walker

Personal Information Alice Malsenior Walker born on February 9, 1944 in Putnam County, Georgia An American author and activist The youngest of eight children Parents’ ancestor were slaves and Indians Father: farmer Mather: maid

Life of Alice Walker 1952, Walker was accidentally wounded in the right eye by a shot from a BB gun fired by one of her brothers 1961, Walker went to Spelman College in Atlanta on a full scholarship when the US civil rights movement is at its peak, then she engaged in the political movement for racial equality

1963, Walker participate a celebrated parade 1965, she volunteered to register black voters in Georgia and Mississippi 1967, she married Melvyn Roseman Leventhal 1968, she published a poem named “Once” 1970,Walker published her debut novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland Then, she keep writing…

1972, Walker went to Wellesley university to teach a course “Women Literature”, which is the first women's studies courses in American university 1982, Walker published what has become her best- known work, The Color Purple. 2008, Walker wrote an open letter to Barack Obama

Her works Poetry collection Once (1968) Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1973) Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning (1979) Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (1985) Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems (1991) Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth (2003) A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems And Drawings (2003) Collected Poems (2005) Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems Non-fiction books In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983) In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose Living by the Word (1988) Warrior Marks (1993) Warrior Marks The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult (1996) Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism (1997) Go Girl!: The Black Woman's Book of Travel and Adventure (1997) Pema Chodron and Alice Walker in Conversation (1999) Sent By Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit After the Bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon (2001) We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (2006) Overcoming Speechlessness (2010) Chicken Chronicles, A Memoir (2011) Novels and short story collections The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) The Third Life of Grange Copeland In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1973, includes "Everyday Use")Everyday Use Meridian (1976) Meridian The Color Purple (1982) The Color Purple You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories (1982) To Hell With Dying (1988) The Temple of My Familiar (1989) The Temple of My Familiar Finding the Green Stone (1991) Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992) Possessing the Secret of Joy The Complete Stories (1994) By The Light of My Father's Smile (1998) The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart (2000) Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004) Random House

As a poet, Walker treats a range of themes— freedom and individual expression, suicide, spirituality, love, the power of activism, ecology, civil rights—in free verse that recalls, for its spareness and lyricism, such poets as Langston Hughes, Theodore Roethke, Gwendolyn Brooks, Okot p'Bitek, and Zen Buddhist poetry. About Poetry

The defining characteristics of Walker's short fiction are economy, a commitment to examine rather than turn away from the troubling and violent aspects of human experience, and, above all, beautiful language and compelling storytelling. And Walker offers a rich and illuminating exploration of love, spirituality, and the search for wholeness in the modern age. About Fiction

The color Purple

The color purple Is an epistolary novel exploring the trials and triumphs of Celie, a largely unschooled, but earnest and increasingly independent young woman who unburdens herself in her powerful letters to God. Setting: The book begins about 30 years before World War II. It covers the first half of the 20th century, as we follow Celie through thirty or forty years of her life. The setting of Celie's story is unmistakably among poor blacks in rural areas of the South. Genre: The Color Purple, which is told through letters that Celie writes to God, plumbs the psychological depths of Celie and touches on the experiences of her sister. It is a story of friendship and sisterly love that spans literally a lifetime. When the story begins, the sisters are in their teens but by the time the story ends, they are both gray-haired old women about to embrace grandchildren. Themes: Violence, Religion, Race, Love, Family, Marriage, Sexism and racism, Women and Femininity.

Everyday Use

explores African-American women's struggles with racial identity and racism during a particularly tumultuous period of history Themes: Race, Family, Tradition, and Home Setting: Most of the story in "Everyday Use" takes place in the narrator's yard. Right from the get go, she tells us: “A yard like this is more comfortable than most people know.” Background: Later in the story, she points out that her house has “no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside” This description gives us a pretty good understanding of the economic hardships the narrator and her daughters have had to face.

Citation “Alice Walker.” Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 30 May Shmoop Editorial Team. “The Color Purple Themes.” Shmoop.cpm. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov Web. 30 May 2015 Shmoop Editorial Team. “Everyday Use.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov Web. 30 May “Alice Walker Literary Society.” Alice Walker Literary Society. Web. 30 May 2015.