Signed First Edition of The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, African American essayist, writer, poet, teacher and activist.
Walker’s 1982 novel chronicles in letter form the struggle of a fictional black woman, Celie, from rural Georgia in the early 20th century forced to confront racist white and patriarchal black societies. In 1983 Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction for The Color Purple, establishing her as a major writer. Steven Spielberg produced a major motion picture based on the book that was released to wide audiences and significant acclaim in 1985.
The movie version featured Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, in an award-winning acting debut, and attracted a new generation of readers as well as viewers to black cinema. Walker (b. 1944), a prolific author, has written four other novels, including Possessing the Secret of Joy, that features some of the characters and their descendants from The Color Purple. She has also published 12 non-fiction books, 8 collections of short stories, and 9 poems. Her messages encompass our racist, sexist, and violent society, in addition to the struggles of blacks, particularly black women.