Alice Walker: A Life

by Evelyn C. White

Overview

"The rich, complex story White tells . . . is never less than fascinating." —New York Times Book Review

Alice Walker's life is remarkable not only because she was the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction (the book that won her that award, The Color Purple, has been translated into nearly thirty languages and made into an Academy Award–nominated film), but also because these accomplishments are merely highlights of a luminous and varied career made from inauspicious beginnings in rural Georgia. Drawing on extensive interviews and exhaustive research, Evelyn C. White brings this life to light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393328264
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	11/17/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Evelyn C. White, journalist, author, and editor of The Black Women's Health Book, is a visiting scholar in women's studies at Mills College. She lives in Oakland, California, and in Canada.

Table of Contents

	Prologue: In Service	xiii
Part 1	Kudzu
1	Georgia, the Whole Day Through	3
2	Babies and Stumps	9
3	Roots	16
4	"Shift for Self"	23
5	Booker T.	29
6	"I Been Cryin'..."	33
7	Knights in Shining Armor	41
8	A Long Walk	49
9	Order My Steps	56
10	Nobody in Atlanta	66
11	Forbidden Things	78
12	Fit for Myself to Know	85
Part 2	To Have and to Hold
13	Make Yourself Useful	99
14	Reclaimed	108
15	New York	121
16	Live or Die	132
17	In a Biblical Way	139
18	Tulips	147
19	Beyond Daily Bread	155
20	That Alice?	160
21	Nude	170
22	Watered with Blood	180
23	"Conformity is not Community"	185
24	The Children Grow in Love	199
25	A Kindred Lover of Beauty	206
26	A Kiss on Both Sides	215
27	Love the Questions	225
28	Good Night, Willie Lee	239
29	We Are a People	245
30	Changes	260
31	How Rare We Were	267
32	We Were a Part of It	276
Part 3	Life Is the Award
33	Meridian	285
34	Refuge	294
35	Correct Relationship	301
36	Country People	308
37	An Ugly One at That	313
38	A Room to Move Into	326
39	Radically Brilliant	334
40	At a Double Remove	340
41	God Love All Them Feelings	346
42	The Balance Had Begun to Tilt	352
43	Some of Our Work	358
44	Through It All	362
45	I Try to Make Sense	370
46	The Glimpse of Life beyond the Words	383
47	Something to Life Spirits	392
48	Guide and Protect	400
49	More Than Many Hoped	416
50	She Liked Everything She Saw	423
51	The World Is Held Together	428
52	They Saw the Airplane Coming	438
	Epilogue: It's All Love	455
	Chronology	465
	Alice Walker Publications List	468
	Wild Trees Press Publications List	470
	Acknowledgments	471
	Source Notes	475
	Selected Bibliography	514
	Permissions	520
	Photo Credits	522
	Index	525

Editorial Reviews

White's attentiveness to personal stories as well as their historical context is the greatest achievement of this important work. She presents the life of Walker -- the precious, precocious and cherished eighth child of sharecroppers -- from her birth and childhood in the Jim Crow South to her politicization and involvement in the civil rights movement, her years at Spelman and Sarah Lawrence colleges, her interracial marriage, and her celebrity as a world-famous writer.
— The Washington Post

Farah Jasmine Griffin

The rich, complex story White tells, however, is never less than fascinating.
— The New York Times

Stacy D'Erasmo

In this vibrant narrative, White strives to go beyond simply mapping the movements and accomplishments of the first black female Pulitzer Prize winner. While White relies heavily on interviews with Alice Walker (b. 1944), her family and friends, the stories are always told in a historical context. Walker's childhood as a daughter of Georgia sharecroppers is framed by what it meant to be a poor black female in the Jim Crow South. White particularly focuses on an accident that transforms the eight-year-old Walker from talkative and precocious to introverted and sad. Walker was shot with a BB gun and left disfigured and blind in one eye, and her father was refused a ride to transport the injured girl into town and swindled out of $250 by a white doctor. These events, according to White, brought the young Walker to a new level of understanding of the inhumanity of Southern racism and later moved her to search and reveal, through her writings, the depths of human suffering. This understanding also drove Walker to become active in various causes, most notably the Civil Rights and black feminist movements. From beginning to end, White (The Black Women's Health Book), in her first biography, meticulously traces and analyzes the stages of Walker's life, emphasizing the impact on and importance of her literature in American culture. Agent, Faith Childs. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

The Color Purple gave Alice Walker her greatest acclaim (and a Pulitzer Prize), but the novel and its movie adaptation were not without controversy. Walker was attacked for portraying black men negatively, writing in dialect, and focusing on lesbianism. In this inspiring biography, journalist White (Chain Chain Change) covers every facet of Walker's life, which began in poverty in segregated Georgia with her seven siblings and sharecropper parents. Walker faced major discrimination in the South, but she survived Jim Crow, suicidal depression, interracial relationships, and an illegal abortion. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement, risking her life as a freedom fighter, and refused to conform to society's expectations; she married a white man (and was labeled a race traitor), then divorced him and came out as a bisexual. White has presented a superb study of an important and popular writer, though she devotes too much time to the now-dated controversy surrounding Walker's most celebrated book. Nevertheless, this first biography of Walker is highly recommended for African American and women's studies collections. Ann Burns, Library Journal Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal