Copyright - 1992 Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.

Walker, Alice

      Alice Walker, b.  Eatonton, Ga., Feb.  9, 1944, is a poet, 
      novelist, and short-story writer whose graphic depiction of the 
      lives of southern blacks has established her as one of the most 
      promising of younger writers.  Born into a sharecropper family, 
      she took part in the civil rights movement of the 1960s while in 
      college.  Her experiences in the movement formed the basis for 
      two novels, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970) and Meridian 
      (1976), as well as for In Love and Trouble (1973), her poignant 
      collection of stories about black women.  Walker has also 
      published several volumes of poetry, including Once (1968), 
      Revolutionary Petunias (1973), and Good Night Willie Lee.  Her 
      novel The Color Purple (1982; film, 1985) won the Pulitzer Prize 
      and the American Book Award in 1983. The Temple of My Familiar, a 
      novel, was published in 1989.