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Alice Walker


This week's WCW made me laugh and cry and rage. And I berated myself for waiting so long to read her work.


Alice Walker won the Pulitizer Prize and the National Book Award for The Color Purple. She grew up in Georgia during the time of Jim Crow laws. During her time at Spelman College, she became interested and involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Many of the rights she was fighting for appear in her various poems and novels in some way. 

She has been a champion for womens' rights, African-American rights and bodily autonomy. She has come under scrutiny in the past for her activism (particularly involving a Gaza flotilla in 2011). 

Her books don't hold back. The Color Purple is raw and emotional. It can be difficult to read, but it matters so much. Walker writes in simple phrases and manages to convey a wealth of emotion behind them. I don't understand how she works her magic, but it definitely works. 




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