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Alice Walker

Alice Walker. American author and feminist Born February 1944 in Georgia The 8 th child of sharecroppers. African-American as well as Cherokee, Scottish and Irish lineage. Early life.

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Alice Walker

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  1. Alice Walker American author and feminist Born February 1944 in Georgia The 8th child of sharecroppers. African-American as well as Cherokee, Scottish and Irish lineage.

  2. Early life • In 1952 when she was eight years old. Playing cowboys and Indians with her older brothers Curtis and Bobby, Curtis accidentally shot Alice in the eye with a BB gun. To avoid punishment, the brothers concocted a fiction and pressured their sister to accept it. The physical result was that Alice lost the sight in her right eye, which developed a disfiguring white scar. Psychologically, she grew more introspective, contending with feelings of sadness, alienation, and betrayal. “An accident became,” as she recalled, “‘my accident’—thereby absolving my brothers of any blame.”

  3. Education • With “three magic gifts” from her mother in hand—a typewriter, a sewing machine, and a suitcase—Walker enrolled at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1961, where she quickly became involved in the civil rights movement. She developed important friendships with the historians Howard Zinn and Staughton Lynd. With the assistance of Lynd, Walker transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in 1964. At Sarah Lawrence, Walker’s commitment to becoming a writer was nurtured.

  4. After graduation • Walker worked for the New York welfare system and learned about Blacks who were evicted from their homes for attempting to register to vote. • Married a lawyer (whom she later divorced). • one daughter, Rebecca Grant born in 1969.

  5. Quotation • I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

  6. Genres • Walker writes in multiple genres; novels, poetry, short stories and non-ficton. • Her fiction focuses on the struggles on African-Americans, especially women and their oppression. • Pulitzer Prize winner in 1983 for her novel, The Color Purple. (later made into a movie and play). Officers of the Alice Walker Literary Societyhttp://www.jamesweldonjohnson.emory.edu/alicewalker.htm

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