Abstract
In Alice Walker’s work a legacy from the Southern experience provides a consistent interest and voice:
What the Black Southern writer inherits as a natural right is a sense of community. Something simple but surprisingly hard these days, to come by. (Walker, 1983, p. 17)
This is true of much Black women’s work, including that of Toni Morrison and, like Morrison, Walker is concerned with recuperating history to underpin a sense of her own and her community’s identity:
I think my whole program as a writer is to deal with history just so I know where I am. (Walker, 1983, p. 185)
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Bethel, Lorraine (1982), in Barbara Smith et al. (eds), But Some of us are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (London: The Feminist Press).
Boehmer, Elleke (1991), ‘Stories of Women and Mothers’, in Susheila Nasta (ed.), Motherlands (London: The Women’s Press).
Christian, Barbara (1984), ‘Alice Walker: The Black Woman Artist as Way-ward’, in Mari Evans (ed.), Black Women Writers (London: Pluto).
Hall, Christine (1993), ‘Arts, Action and the Ancestors: Alice Walker’s Meridian in its context’, in G. Wisker (ed.), Insights into Black Women Writers (Macmillan: London).
Hooks, Bell (1981), Ain’t I a Woman? (Boston, Mass.: South End Press).
Jacobs, Harriet (1861), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, reprinted in Henry Louis Gates Jr and Nellie Y. McKay (1997), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (New York: W. W. Norton).
Kaplan, Cora (1986), ‘Keeping the Color in The Color Purple’, in Sea Changes (London: Verso).
Light, Alison (1985), from ‘Collected Papers of the Literature Teaching Politics Conference, Bristol’.
Marks, E. and De Courtivron, L. (eds) (1981), New French Feminisms: An Anthology (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf).
Morrison, Toni (1970), The Bluest Eye (London: Triad Grafton).
Morrison, Toni (1987), Beloved (London: Chatto and Windus).
Tate, Claudia (1984), Black Women Writers at Work (London: Continuum).
Walker, Alice (1970), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (London: The Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1972), Five Poems (Detroit: Broadside Press).
Walker, Alice (1986 [1968]), Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (London: Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1982 [1976]), Meridian (London: Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1987 [1979]), Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning (London: Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1983), The Color Purple (London: The Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1983a), In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (London: The Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1983b), ‘The Black Writer and the Southern Experience’, in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (London: The Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1988), Living By the Word (London: The Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1989), The Temple of My Familiar (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich).
Walker, Alice (1992), Possessing the Secret of Joy (London: The Women’s Press).
Walker, Alice (1998), By the Light of My Father’s Smile (London: Random House).
Walker, Alice and Parmar, Pratibha (1993), Warrior Marks (London: Jonathan Cape).
Wilentz, Gay (1992), Binding Cultures (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press).
Copyright information
© 2000 Gina Wisker
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wisker, G. (2000). Alice Walker. In: Post-Colonial and African American Women’s Writing. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-98524-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-98524-3_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-72746-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-333-98524-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)