Alice Walker is a respected African-America woman who has inspired many through her writings. The novelist, activist and poet has continued to be recognized for various novels, especially The Color Purple novel which won her the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker has an accumulated net worth of $8 million, through her writing ventures.
Walker’s Career
Walker has published novels, short story collections, poetry, and non-fiction collections. Her most famous book ‘The Color Purple’ won an award for Best Fiction, and became a hit Broadway musical in 2005. In 1985 they made a film directed by Steven Spielberg starring Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, and Whoopi Goldberg. Throughout her career, she published 12 non-fiction collections, 17 novels, a collection of short stories, poetry, and essays.
In 1968, she released her poetry collection entitled ‘Once’ inspired by her suicidal triggers after an abortion. She worked for the legal defense fund of the National Association for colored people, later she was a writer at Tugaloo College and Jackson State University.
Walker taught at the university of Massachusetts Boston, in 1972, a course in black women’s magic. A year later, she worked as an editor for Ms. Magazine. ‘Meridian’ her second novel was published talking about activists in the South in 1976.her best-selling novel was then published in 1982 talking about a black woman navigating life in a white and patriarchal culture.
Walker advocated for women of color and joined the civil rights movement crediting her decision to Martin Luther King Jr. However, she received criticism for supporting David Icke as his work contains many theories of antisemitic conspiracy as well as her projects.
Her collections highlight the struggles of black people, a racist society, and the take of women in the society. Her other novels include Possessing the Secret of Joy and The Temple of My Familiar. In 2000, she released The Way Forward is With a Broken Heart a fiction based on her life experiences. she donated all her work research and scripts to the rare book library in 2007 and published two books in 2013 and a poem book.
In 2016, she sold her home in Berkeley, California for $2.65 million to the chancellor of U.C Berkeley.
Inspirations
Alice Walker was inspired to read and write after sustaining a permanent injury in her right eye. at the age of eight her brother hit her with a BB gun projectile, and her family could not manage to take her to the hospital on time since they did not have a car. This resulted in her being permanently blind in the right eye.
After her divorce, in 1976, she joined Robert L. Allen and co-founded the feminist publishing company Wild Tree Press in North California.
While at Sarah Lawrence College, she became pregnant and had an abortion which was followed by suicidal thoughts and this inspired her to start her poetry collection called ‘Once’ which she published in 1968.
Personal Life
Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9th, 1944 to Willie and Minnie. Her father was a sharecropper while her mother was a seamstress. She went to Butler Baker High School the only available school for black students. After graduating, she received a scholarship and went to Spelman College in Atlanta, but later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, graduating in 1968.
Walker married Melvyn Leventhal, a civil rights attorney. They were the first legally married interracial couple in Jackson, Mississippi. They had a daughter named Rebecca but unfortunately, they separated in 1976 after nine years together.
