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Quick Facts
- NAME: Alice Walker
- OCCUPATION: Civil Rights Activist, Women's Rights Activist, Author
- BIRTH DATE: February 09, 1944 (Age: 69)
- EDUCATION: Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Eatonton, Georgia
- Full Name: Alice Malsenior Walker
- AKA: Alice Walker
- ZODIAC SIGN: Aquarius
Best Known For
Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African-American novelist and poet most famous for authoring The Color Purple.
Videos see all videos
Alice Walker - Pursuing Civil Rights
While at Spelman College, Alice Walker turned down a scholarship to study abroad in Paris in order to go to Mississippi to pursue civil rights equality.
Alice Walker - The Mysterious Wonder of Life
Author Alice Walker began writing early in life. When an injury to her left eye afforded her the chance to go to College, Walker began to work towards her goal of becoming a professional writer.
Whoopi Goldberg - The Color Purple
After working in stand up comedy, Whoopi Goldberg wanted to try her hand at film acting and was given her first major role by Steven Spielberg in the film "The Color Purple."
Langston Hughes - Mini Biography
Langston Hughes was the leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance, whose poetry showcased the dignity and beauty in ordinary black life. The hours he spent in Harlem clubs affected his work, making him one of the innovators of Jazz Poetry.
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Play NowAlice Walker. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 06:34, May 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939.
Alice Walker. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939 [Accessed 19 May 2013].
"Alice Walker." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 19 2013, 06:34 http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939.
"Alice Walker," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939 [accessed May 19, 2013].
"Alice Walker," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939 (accessed May 19, 2013).
Alice Walker [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939.
Alice Walker, http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939 (last visited May 19, 2013).
Alice Walker. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939. Accessed May 19, 2013.
Like the novel, the movie was a critical success, receiving 11 Academy Award nominations. Walker explored her own feelings about the film in her 1996 work, The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult. In 2005, The Color Purple became a Broadway musical.
Walker incorporated characters and their relations from The Color Purple into two of her other novels: The Temple of My Familiar (1989) and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992),
which earned great critical praise and caused some controversy for its exploration of the practice of female genital mutilation.
Recent Works
Walker has proved time and time again to be a versatile writer. In 2004, she published Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart. Two years later, in 2006, she published a collection of essays, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Light in a Time of Darkness, and the well-received picture book There Is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me.
Continuing her work as a political activist, Walker also wrote about her experiences with the group Women for Women International in 2010's Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo and Palestine/Israel. She published another poetry collection, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing, that same year.
After more than four decades as a writer, Alice Walker shows no signs of slowing down. In 2012, she released The Chicken Chronicles; in this latest memoir, she ruminates on caring for her flock of chickens. Following the release of The Chicken Chronicles, she began working on The Cushion in the Road, a collection of mediations on a variety of subjects slated to be published in 2013.
Personal Life
Walker married activist Melvyn Leventhal in 1967. The couple had one daughter, Rebecca Walker, before divorcing in 1976.
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