How did you reconcile your relationship with the South over the years? If you do your part and show up, the universe often has a big gift for you, and I’m so grateful.ĪRTS ATL: You’ve described some of what you experienced in Eatonton as terrorism. There was a love of reading in my family even though my parents went to fourth and fifth grade.

Some of these things are marvelously and miraculously sent to guide you in the path of your own gift. I wonder if I can do it.” My mother tells a story about me scribbling with a twig in the dirt trying to write a novel. But everyone loved to read, and I was like, “Gosh, here’s this thing that fell out of the sky and we all like it. It’s amazing that all these things turned up in our little shack. We caught up with Walker just before the celebration to discuss her childhood, her career and what she has left to do at 75.ĪRTS ATL: When did you know that writing was your calling? Who nourished that talent?Īlice Walker: Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare - the random books that my father would find and bring home the stories in Prose & Poetry, which is a collection of English literature that we had. Over the course of her 50-year career, she has worked as an artist, activist and educator, and she was a contributor to the feminist publication Ms. She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel The Color Purple and close to 40 other books. Walker, whose actual birthday is February 9, was born in Eatonton to parents who worked as sharecroppers. Hundreds of literature lovers descended on the rural town for Walker’s 75th birthday celebration, which featured a documentary screening, musical performances and other famous authors reading from her work. Alice Walker’s brief remarks seemed to stall time at the Plaza Arts Center in Eatonton last weekend.

The colour purple author