Summary
Alice Walker is one of the few living writers whose work regularly appears in the high school curriculum. While she is known primarily for her best-selling novel and masterpiece The Color Purple, many of her other novels, essays, and poems are favorites of both students and teachers alike. In 1983 she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Critical Companion to Alice Walker is a one-stop resource for anyone interested in this prolific author's life, works, and achievements.
Coverage includes:
- A concise but thorough biography of Walker
- Entries on all of Walker's major works, including such novels as The Color Purple, Meridian, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, and Possessing the Secret of Joy; essay collections and essays, such as "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self"; poetry collections and poems; and short stories. Each entry on a major work of fiction contains subentries on the work's main characters
- Entries on related people, places, and topics, such as feminism, Zora Neale Hurston, Spelman College, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and more
- Appendixes, including a chronology, a bibliography of Walker's works, a secondary source bibliography, and a list of recognitions and awards.