Author of "The Color Purple" Alice Walker will speak on campus April 29

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker

Fort Worth, TX

4/25/2011

Alice Walker, whose novel The Color Purple set her on a meteoric rise to prominence nearly 30 years ago, will visit campus in late April for an academic consultation and public lecture. “An Evening With Alice Walker,” is set for 7 p.m. Friday, April 29 in Ed Landreth Auditorium.

The event is sponsored by AddRan College of Liberal Arts. Tickets are $15, with students admitted free although seat reservations are mandatory. To register, go to www.froglinks.com/AliceWalker.

Miss Walker is best known for her stories about African American women who achieve heroic stature within the borders of their daily lives. She grew up in rural Georgia, daughter of a sharecropper and the youngest of eight children. Accidently blinded in one eye at the age of eight, Alice withdrew from normal childhood activities and began writing poetry to ease her loneliness.

Inspired by her teachers, she was able to graduate from high school with a scholarship to attend Spelman College in Atlanta where she involved herself in the growing civil rights movement. She transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York City in 1964 and graduated a year later. As Walker honed her craft as a writer, she also held a number of teaching appointments and initiated projects that reaffirmed her commitment to writing while also enhancing her national standing.

The Color Purple, now a classic of American literature, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007. The award-winning novel served as the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film and has been adapted for the stage. Premiering at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater in September 2004, The Color Purple opened at New York City’s Broadway Theatre in December 2005. LaChanze starred as Celie and won a Tony Award for best leading actress in a musical in 2006.

Walker’s writings have been translated into more than two dozen languages, and her books have sold more than 15 million copies. Along with the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Walker’s awards and fellowships include a Guggenheim Fellowship and a residency at Yaddo.  In 2007, Walker appointed Emory University as the custodian of her archive, which opened to researchers and the public in April 2009.

For more details on Alice Walker’s life and career, go to www.alicewalkersgarden.com.