Languages, Literature, and Philosophy

With profound artistry, Walker searches for, discovers, and declares the fundamental beauty of existence, as she explores what it means to live life fully, to learn from it, and to grow both as an individual and as part of a greater spiritual community
(book jacket)

"Though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one." So writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved ones, war, the deliciousness of love, environmental devastation, the sorrow of rejection, greed, poverty, and the sweetness of home. The poems embrace our connections while celebrating the joy of individuality, the power we each share to express our truest, deepest selves. Beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others, she demonstrates that we are stronger than our circumstances. As she confronts personal and collective challenges, her works dance, sing, and heal.
(LibraryThing)

An anthology of poetry shares a keen historical perspective on the spiritual, social, and political issues of the last three decades, in works including Once and Revolutionary Petunias & Other Poems.
(LibraryThing)

The Color Purple documents the traumas and gradual triumph of Celie, an African American teenager raised in rural isolation in Georgia, as she comes to resist the paralyzing self-concept forced on her by others.
(Britannica)

Meridian is about Meridian Hill, a young black woman in the late 1960s who is attending college as she embraces the civil rights movement at a time when the movement becomes violent. The story follows her life into the 1970s through a relationship that ultimately fails, and her continued efforts to support the movement.
(Wikipedia)

The Temple of My Familiar is a 1989 novel by Alice Walker. It is an ambitious and multi-narrative novel containing the interleaved stories of Arveyda, a musician in search of his past; Carlotta, his Latin American wife who lives in exile from hers; Suwelo, a black professor of American History who realizes that his generation of men have failed women; Fanny, his ex-wife about to meet her father for the first time; and Lissie, a vibrant creature with a thousand pasts.[1]
(Wikipedia)

Published in 1983, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose is a collection composed of 36 separate pieces written by Alice Walker. The essays, articles, reviews, statements, and speeches were written between 1966 and 1982.[1] Many are based on her understanding of "womanist" theory. Walker defines "womanist" at the beginning of the collection as "A black feminist or feminist of color. From the black folk expression of mother to female children and also a woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women's culture. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."[2]
(Wikipedia)

Speaking from the heart on a wide range of topics - religion and the spirit, writing and language, families and identity, politics and social change - Walker begins with a moving autobiographical essay in which she describes her own spiritual growth and the roots of her activism, including reflections about religion in The Color Purple. She goes on to explore many important private and public issues: being a daughter and raising one, dreadlocks, banned books, civil rights, gender communication, and the ritual mutilation of children in Ghana. She writes about Zora Neale Hurston and Salman Rushdie and offers advice for Bill Clinton, for Fidel Castro, and for young women growing up. She comments on culture and cats, feminism and race, writing and living. Here are a wise woman's thoughts as she interacts with the world today, and an important portrait of an activist writer's life.
(Library Thing)