"To the people that we love, I think the greatest gift we can give is to be who we are"
- Alice Walker

Who is Alice Walker?
Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia. After attending Spelman College and graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, Walker was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1983 and the American Book Award for her novel, The Color Purple.

While Walker dislikes being classified as a feminist, she prefers the term "womanist," that is, a Black feminist. The term womanist comes from the phrase "You're acting womanish" which is a term generally used to describe "forward" American-American women.

Along with the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award, Walker has also earned a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lillian Smith Award and the Radcliff Medal and the Rosenthal Award for Fiction from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (among others).

Some of her other books include Meridian, You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down, Possessing the Secret of Joy, The Temple of my Familiar and The Same River Twice. Her shorter pieces have also been published in magazines and journals such as Ms., The New York Times Magazine and The Best American Short Stories.

Ms. Walker has one daughter, Rebecca Walker, who is also an accomplished writer.


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By Alison Isaac