The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult - Tapa dura

Alice Walker is a poet, essayist, short story writer and novelist whose work has been published around the world to great praise. Her novel The Color Purple brought her into the limelight, but she was by that time known for her poetry, social commentary, short stories, and for her novels Meridian and The Third Life of Grange Copeland.

The Color Purple was awarded The Pulitzer Prize and The American Book Award, and has sold nearly 5 million copies in the United States alone. It was published in 1982.

Since then, Alice Walker has written two bestselling novels, The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy. In addition, she has published two collections of essays, two collections of short stories, and five volumes of poetry. In 1993, a film about female genital mutilation, which Walker coproduced, was distributed by Women Make Movies, and its companion book, Warrior Marks, was released.

Born in Eatonton, Georgia, Alice Walker attended Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence. She has been a university teacher and has lived in Georgia, New York, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and California, where she now resides.

OTHER WORKS BY ALICE WALKER:

• In Love and Trouble

• The Third Life of Grange Copeland

• The Color Purple

• Living By the Word

• Meridian

• Possessing the Secret of Joy

• In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens

• The Temple of My Familiar

• You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down

• Warrior Marks (cowritten with Pratibha Parmer)

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