Alice Walker is an acclaimed African American author born in 1944 in Georgia. She received her education at Spellman College and Sarah Lawrence College. Walker is renowned for her novels, short stories, poems, and essays focusing on the experiences of black women and human rights issues. Some of her most famous works include her novel The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize, and her collections of poetry. Throughout her career, Walker has taught at several universities and received many honors for her influential literature addressing discrimination, sexuality, and the suffering of women.

1. ALICE WALKER: Her Life Her Literature Her Focus By: Temekia Simmons

2. Introduction: Alice Malsenior Walker: born February 9, 1944 Born in Eatonton, GA to sharecropper parents Minnie Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker

3. Education:1961 Spellman College – Atlanta 1962 - 1965 Sarah Lawrence – New York

4. Collection of PoetryIncludes: 1968 “Once” First Collection of Poetry 1973 “Revolutionary Petunias” 1979 “Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning” 1985 “Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful” 1991 “Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems” 2003 “Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth” “A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems And Drawings”

5. Most Famous Novels & Short Stories 1970 – “The Third Life of Grange Copeland” 1973 - “Everyday Use” 1976- “Meridian” 1982 “The Color Purple” 1982 “You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down: Stories” 1992 “Possessing the Secret of Joy” 2005 “Now Is The Time to Open Your Heart”

6. Essays & Other Writings 1999 “Dreads: Sacred Rites of the Natural Hair Revolution” (Artisan, 1999. With Francesco Mastalia and Alfonse Pagano); 1997 “Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism” 1973-1987 (1988) The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult; Living by the Word: Selected Writings, 1983 In Search of Our Mother's Gardens: Womanist Prose

7. Career Teacher, Jackson State College, 1968-69, Tugaloo College, 1970-71 Mississippi Lecturer, Wellesley College, 1972-73 & University of Massachusetts 1972-73 Associate Professor of English, Yale University Distinguished Writer, University of California, Berkeley, 1982 Fannie Hurst Professor, Brandeis University Lecturer and reader of own poetry at universities and conferences Member of board of trustees of Sarah Lawrence College Co-founder and publisher, Wild Trees Press Co-producer of film documentary, Warrior Marks, 1993.

9. “The Color Purple”

11. “Guggenheim Fellowship” The Radcliffe Institute

12. Alice Walker’s Literary Focus: The main focus of Alice Walker’s literature is black women and human rights although she makes a strong stand to fight for rights of all woman. Based upon her experiences as an African American woman, born and raised in the south. She expresses the pain and suffering endured by discrimination against African Americans, inhuman treatment, human sexuality and cruelty against women.

13. Works Cited http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/486 http://alicewalkersgarden.com/about/ http://www.answers.com/topic/alice-walker