Alice+Walker


 * Alice Walker**

Alice Walker Alice Walker is an African American novelist. She is also a short-story writer, essayist, poet, and activist. She was born in Eatonton on February 9, 1944. She was the youngest of her siblings to Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and Winnie Lee Walker. In 1952 a tragic accident occurred. Alice’s older brother accidentally shot her with a BB gun blinding her in one eye. From then on she became different in a way. She became private, secluded, and reserved. She often dreamed of suicide but she found comfort in writing. Alice began to change her way of life, she became an observer rather than a participant, a follower rather than a leader. Alice Walker graduated high school and left for Spelman College in 1961, Atlanta  Georgia despite of her life and the changes in her life. Later in 1963, Walker left Spelman for Sarah Lawrence  College. In 1964, was when everything changed Alice ’s life. She discovered she was pregnant. She constantly thought of suicide, the only thing that calmed her was writing. She finally was back to normal when she got an abortion. Through all of the writing that she did when pregnant she wrote and published //To Hell with Dying// in 1965. In 1966 is when Alice fell in love with Melvyn Laventhal. This is when all the writing comes into her life. Melvyn Laventhal and Alice marry a year later, regardless of the pressure about their inter-racial marriage. Alice became pregnant again a while after the marriage but lost it due to problems such as complications. During the pregnancy she wrote and also published //Once// in 1968. Walker became pregnant again, and in the same week she published //The Third Life of Grange Copeland// and her daughter Rebecca was born. Alice took a job at Tougaloo College as a writer-in-position, and then in 1972 she became a teacher at Wellesley  College. One day while searching Alice came upon work of Zora Hurston and it really inspired her to begin writing seriously. In 1973 she published //In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women// and her second book of poetry //Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems.// After the publication of //Langston Hughes; American Poet// and becoming editor of Feminist publication //Ms.// magazine Alice and her husband split up. She then fell in love with a fellow editor, Robert Allen of Black Scholar. Again she published, she published // Meridian //. Her next so called project was another book of short stories: //You Can’t Keep A Good Women Down//, which wasn’t all that famous as her next project. The world but mostly critics were surprised with her next big, really big project, the Pulitizer Prize winning novel //The Color Purple//. The novel was so good that it was later made into a feature-length motion picture, directed by Steven Spielberg. This turned Alice Walker into a literary success overnight. In the next couple of years she continued to publish different types of writing. These are some writings that were published after //The Color Purple//. In Search of //Our Mother’s Gardens//, //Warrior Marks//, //Horses Make A Landscape More Beautiful//, //Goodnight Willie Lee I’ll See You in the Morning//. Her second book of essays entitled //Living by the word// and her epic novel //The// // Temple //// of //// My Familiar ////. // In the late 1900’s about 1998-2001 she, Alice Published //Possessing the Secret of Joy//, //The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult, Anything We Love Can Be Saved: a Writer’s Activism, By the Light of My Father’s Smile, The Way Forward is with a Broken Heart, A Long Walk of Freedom// and her latest work //Sent by Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit After the Bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.// Alice Walker has written many other writings such as biographies, autobiographies, poems, essays, chapter books, and short-stories in the past few years. She is continuing what she started. Alice Walker is about 64 years old and she is still writing. She is continuing not only to write, but also to be active in environmental, feminist/womanist causes, and issues of economic justice. She has become one of the world’s most known authors. Her stories and other types of writing are very helpful and some people say it helps them deal with the struggles of life. All I know is that she is definitely a southern writer. This is why I think so. In // The Color Purple // the setting overall is in the south. Also the symbolism, titles, and even the tones of the stories I read of hers represent something of the south. Most of the universe who knows about Alice enjoys her writing and I also enjoy her writings, I think she should truly be acknowledged. I really hope she continues to strive and do her best and continue to write, poems, short-stories, essays, and other books.

− Tamara Jones Sources**: http://www.newgeorgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-998&hl=y http://aalbc.com/authors/alice.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker http://womenshistory.about.com/od/alicewalker/a/alice_walker.htm http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/walker_alice.html http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/alicew/**