Walker was the eighth and youngest child of minnie tallulah grant walker and willie lee walker. Her father was a poor sharecropper who once remarked that alice was wonderful at math but a terrible farmer. In the summer of 1952, walker was blinded in her right eye by a bb gun pellet while playing with her brother. Alice grew up in an environment rife with racism and poverty, which, along with her passion for gender issues, remains a large part of her narratives. To help send her to college, walker 39 s mother worked eleven hour days as a maid for a meager seventeen dollars a week. After two years at spelman college, she received a scholarship to sarah lawrence college in new york.

She became one of a chosen few young black students to attend the prestigious school. Walker was involved with many civil rights demonstrations, and in 1962 she was invited to the home of dr. After graduating in 1965, walker became a social worker and teacher, while remaining heavily invested and involved in the civil rights movement. As a writer in residence at jackson state college and tougaloo college, she taught poetry while working on her own poetry and fiction. She contributed to groundbreaking feminist ms. magazine in the late 60s, writing a piece about the unappreciated work of african american author zora neale hurston. Her first novel, the third life of grange copeland was published in 1970.

She wrote the critically acclaimed novel the color purple 1982 for which she won the national book award and the pulitzer prize for fiction. The novel was adapted into an acclaimed film directed by steven spielberg in 1985, starring whoopi goldberg as protagonist celie harris. The novel and film trace celie 39 s life in the early 20th century american south, and her struggles with poverty, racism, sexism and violence, and the female friendship that empowers her. 2 sources cited length: 964 words 2.8 double spaced pages alice walker, one of the best known and most highly respected writers in the us, was born in eatonton.

At the tender age of eight, walker lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a bb gun by accident. This left her in somewhat a depression, and she secluded herself from the other children. Walker felt like she was no longer a little girl because of the traumatic experience she had undergone, and she was filled with shame because she thought she was unpleasant to look at.

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Despite this tragedy in her life and the feelings of inferiority, walker became valedictorian of her class in high school and received a rehabilitation scholarship to attend spelman. Spelman college was a college for black women in atlanta, georgia, not far from walker’s home. While at spelman, walker became involved in civil rights demonstrations where she spoke out against the silence of the institution’s curriculum when it came to african american culture and history. So she transferred to sarah lawrence college in new york and had the opportunity to travel to africa as an exchange student. Upon her return, she received her bachelor of arts degree from sarah lawrence college in 1965. She received a writing fellowship and was planning to spend it in senegal, west africa. But her plans changed when she decided to take ajob as a case worker in the new york city welfare department.

Walker later moved to tougaloo, mississippi, during which time she became more involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. She used her own and others’ experiences as material for her searing examinations of politics. She also volunteered her time working at the voter registration drive in mississippi. Walker often admits that her decision not to take the writing fellowship was based on the realization that she could never live happily in africa or anywhere else until she could live freely in mississippi. Walker found the love of her life in 1967, a white activist civil rights lawyer name mel leventhal, and they were married in 1967.

She began teaching at jackson state, then tougaloo, and finally at wellesley college. She was also a fellow at the ratcliffe institute from 1971 to 1973, and it was in her last year there that she published her first collection of stories, in love and trouble. Walker is still very much involved in the civil rights movement and has spoken for the women’s movement, the anti apartheid movement, for the anti nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. Walker refuses to ignore the tangle of personal and political themes and has produced five novels, two collections of short stories, numerous volumes of poetry, and two books of essays that address such issues. She has won fame and recognition in many countries but has not lost her sense of rootedness in the south. In her famous essay, in search of our mothers’ garden she talks about watching her mother at the end of a day of back breaking physical labor on someone else’s farm return home, only to walk the long distance to their well to get water for her garden planted each year at their doorstep. She gives her mother full credit as showing her what it means to be an artist of dedication and showing a tough conviction that life without beauty is unbearable.

Walker was also influenced by a number of other prominent authors, including flannery o’connor and zora neale hurston. She received the pulitzer prize in 1983 for the color purple, perhaps her most famous work. Among her other numerous awards are the lillian smith award from the national endowment for the arts, the rosenthal award from the national institute of arts letters, a nomination for the national book award, and the townsend prize.