Description

Born Eatonton, GeorgiaAlice Walker is a model of the engaged intellectual: her fiction is infused with the sense of righteous purpose that drove her early involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s when she was a college student. In the 1980s, she helped popularize the term “womanist” as a way to recognize the diverging priorities of women of color from those of their white feminist counterparts.As the daughter of sharecroppers from rural Georgia, Walker has maintained an interest in vernacular Southern Black culture, working to revive the work of Zora Neale Hurston and other African American women writers who focused on folk life. In addition to writing poetry and criticism, Walker has published several novels, including The Color Purple (1982), which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. The book quickly rose to the top of the best-seller list, and its film adaptation was nominated for eleven Academy Awards.Nacida en Eatonton, GeorgiaAlice Walker es modelo de la intelectual comprometida. Sus obras de ficción reflejan la justeza de propósito que la involucró en el movimiento pro derechos civiles cuando aún era universitaria, en la década de 1960. En los años ochenta contribuyó a popularizar el término “mujerista” para señalar la diferencia de prioridades entre las mujeres de color y las feministas blancas.Hija de campesinos aparceros de Georgia, Walker ha demostrado un interés constante en la cultura vernácula negra del sur del país y ha luchado por rescatar la obra de Zora Neale Hurston y otras afroamericanas que...

Record Contributed By

National Portrait Gallery

Record Harvested From

Smithsonian Institution