Alice Walker: A Life
by Evelyn C. White
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Description
"Born to a sharecropping family in Georgia, Alice Walker thrived in the rich culture of what she called the "agrarian peasantry" to become one of our most important and popular writers. Evelyn C. White charts Walker's childhood, marked by an incident at eight that left her blinded in her right eye and with disfiguring scar tissue and that prompted her, out of a sense of "ugliness," to probe human suffering through her poems and stories. In this biography, we learn of Walker's activism in the show more 1960s freedom movement, and her leadership in the debate on black women's art, politics, and sexuality. The Color Purple garnered Walker the Pulitzer Prize in fiction - the first awarded to a black woman writer. Drawing on papers, letters, journals, and extensive interviews with Walker, her family, friends, colleagues, and leading American cultural figures including Gloria Steinem, Quincy Jones, and Oprah Winfrey, White assesses one of the most influential writers of our time."--Jacket. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A wonderful biography, beautifully-written, illuminating, and rich in detail and interest, but not nearly as well-done as she herself would do it - if she were so inclined! Her journey is fascinating, and she perhaps will tell it herself someday. I hope so.
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Author Information
5+ Works 298 Members
Evelyn C. White's articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including Smithsonian, Essence, Ms., the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. White holds degrees from Harvard University, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and Wellesley College. A visiting scholar at show more Mills College in Oakland, California, she lives in the San Francisco Bay area and western Canada show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Notable Lists
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Alice Walker
Classifications
- Genres
- Biography & Memoir, Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature, LGBTQ+
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PS3573 .A425 .Z93 — Language and Literature American literature American literature Individual authors 1961-
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 123
- Popularity
- 264,444
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.79)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
