Alice Walker: A Life

Farah Jasmine Griffin

White's attentiveness to personal stories as well as their historical context is the greatest achievement of this important work. She presents the life of Walker -- the precious, precocious and cherished eighth child of sharecroppers -- from her birth and childhood in the Jim Crow South to her politicization and involvement in the civil rights movement, her years at Spelman and Sarah Lawrence colleges, her interracial marriage, and her celebrity as a world-famous writer.
— The Washington Post

Stacy D'Erasmo

The rich, complex story White tells, however, is never less than fascinating.
— The New York Times

Publishers Weekly

In this vibrant narrative, White strives to go beyond simply mapping the movements and accomplishments of the first black female Pulitzer Prize winner. While White relies heavily on interviews with Alice Walker (b. 1944), her family and friends, the stories are always told in a historical context. Walker's childhood as a daughter of Georgia sharecroppers is framed by what it meant to be a poor black female in the Jim Crow South. White particularly focuses on an accident that transforms the eight-year-old Walker from talkative and precocious to introverted and sad. Walker was shot with a BB gun and left disfigured and blind in one eye, and her father was refused a ride to transport the injured girl into town and swindled out of $250 by a white doctor. These events, according to White, brought the young Walker to a new level of understanding of the inhumanity of Southern racism and later moved her to search and reveal, through her writings, the depths of human suffering. This understanding also drove Walker to become active in various causes, most notably the Civil Rights and black feminist movements. From beginning to end, White (The Black Women's Health Book), in her first biography, meticulously traces and analyzes the stages of Walker's life, emphasizing the impact on and importance of her literature in American culture. Agent, Faith Childs. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The Color Purple gave Alice Walker her greatest acclaim (and a Pulitzer Prize), but the novel and its movie adaptation were not without controversy. Walker was attacked for portraying black men negatively, writing in dialect, and focusing on lesbianism. In this inspiring biography, journalist White (Chain Chain Change) covers every facet of Walker's life, which began in poverty in segregated Georgia with her seven siblings and sharecropper parents. Walker faced major discrimination in the South, but she survived Jim Crow, suicidal depression, interracial relationships, and an illegal abortion. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement, risking her life as a freedom fighter, and refused to conform to society's expectations; she married a white man (and was labeled a race traitor), then divorced him and came out as a bisexual. White has presented a superb study of an important and popular writer, though she devotes too much time to the now-dated controversy surrounding Walker's most celebrated book. Nevertheless, this first biography of Walker is highly recommended for African American and women's studies collections. Ann Burns, Library Journal Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.