Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker also known as Alice Walker was born on February, 9th 1944 in Eatonton, Ga. She is an American novelist, short story writer, and social activist. Alice’s both parents were sharecroppers. She was the youngest of eight children and was enrolled in school at age four. At the age of eight, Walker lost sight in one of her eyes due to an injury sustained by one of her brothers. This event was captured in her essay “Beauty”.
Alice attended Butler High School, where she became the valedictorian, and attended Spelman College on full scholarship in 1961. She was offered another scholarship from Sarah Lawrence College and graduated in 1965. Walker wrote poems for her first book while she was a senior at Sarah Lawrence and also a student of East Africa. The title of that book was “Once”.
After graduation, Walker worked briefly at for the New York City Department of Welfare. She also worked for the Legal Defense Fund and later returned to writing as a writer-in-residence at Jackson State University and Tougaloo College. She published her first novel in 1970 “The Third Life of Grange Copeland.
Walker wrote a number of great book including the “The Color Purple”. The novel was about a young black woman fighting her way, not only through racism but patriarch black culture. The book became a bestseller and was subsequently adapted into a critically acclaimed movie in 1985. She won the National Book Award for hardcore fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In 2007, Walker donated her papers, consisting of 122 boxes of manuscripts and archive material to Emory’s University Manuscript, Archives and Rare Books Library. In addition to drafts of novels such as The Color Purple, unpublished poems and manuscripts, and correspondence with editors, the collection includes extensive correspondence with family members, friends and colleagues, an early treatment of the film script for ” The Color Purple” syllabi from courses she taught, and fan mail. The collection also contains a scrapbook of poetry compiled when Walker was 15, entitled “Poems of a Childhood Poetess.”
To learn more about Alice Walker you can visit her website https://alicewalkersgarden.com/
My interview question for Alice Walker
- How was your childhood growing up as the youngest child?
- How did it feel to get a scholarship to go to Spelman College?
- How would you sum up your experience of meeting the famous Dr. Martin Luther King ?
- Your book “The Color Purple” was later made into a film, how did the idea come about? And how were the actors and actresses casted?
- Do you think you would write another book?