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Alice Walker was born the youngest of eight children in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944.  She went to college on a scholarship and rushed off to New York soon after graduation.  Her stay in New York was brief.  She moved to Tougaloo, Mississippi in the mid-1960’s and gave birth to her daughter. During this time, Walker became active in the Civil Rights Movement during and remains active today.

In 1982 she published The Color Purple, which earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1983.  Soon after, she started her own publishing company, Wild Trees Press.  She immersed herself in the controversial issue of female circumcision in Africa in two books:  The Temple of my Familiar (1989); and Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992).   Her work largely depicts the struggles of sexism, racism and poverty that women have shared throughout history.  She balances these struggles, however, by portraying women’s strength as the solid rock of a family, the leader in a community, and spiritual-being. Walker has also written In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Inner Light in a Time of Darkness and Meridian a compelling novel about a young woman who goes to  college in Atlanta in search of her place in society.

Alice Walker currently resides in Northern California.