Alice Walker

Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children’s books, and volumes of essays and poetry. She won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1983 and the National Book Award.

Walker has written many bestsellers, including "The Temple of My Familiar," a wisdom tale that originates in prehistory; "By The Light of My Father’s Smile," about sexuality and forgiveness as paths of healing; and "Possessing the Secret of Joy," which explores the effects of female genital mutilation on one woman’s psyche as well as her body. This novel led to the 1993 book and documentary film "Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women," both collaborations with British-Indian filmmaker Pratibha Parmar, and "We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness."

Walker is also known for the novel "The Color Purple," which was adapted into a major feature film in 2023. Among her other writings is "The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult," which chronicles the adventure of having a film made of her novel and weathering storms of censorship, banning, criticism, and verbal attack.

Her work has been translated into more than two dozen languages, and her books have sold more than fifteen million copies. Along with the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Walker, in 2006, was honored as one of the inaugural inductees into the California Hall of Fame. In 2007, her archives were opened to the public at Emory University in her birth state of Georgia. Walker was awarded the Mahmoud Darwish Literary Prize for Fiction 2016.

Walker has been an activist all of her adult life, and believes that learning to extend the range of our compassion is activity and work available to all. She is a staunch defender not only of human rights, but of the rights of all living beings. She is one of the world’s most prolific writers, yet continues to travel the world to literally stand on the side of the poor, and the economically, spiritually and politically oppressed. She also stands, however, on the side of the revolutionaries, teachers and leaders who seek change and transformation of the world.