Alice Walker's Blog

To the Cuban Reader ©2014 by Alice Walker Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart is my seventh novel, and, unless I am mistaken, it is my last. I wrote it toward the close of my Fifth decade; it presents the concerns that, at that time, seemed important to share. First of all, I realized I was older than either of my grandmothers, Kate Nelson Walker or Nettie Lee Grant, had lived to be. One was murdered by a man who desired to be her lover, her five children and husband notwithstanding, the other li...

Our Wandering Lives:  Thoughts About The Color Purple ©2017 by Alice Walker My most free-spirited niece, who was born in Boston, thanked me recently for writing The Color Purple.  She said it gave her a sense of our family, though of course much of that family is imagined rather than literal.  In particular, she said, it made her feel more loving toward her wayward leaning self.  She could witness “aunts” in The Color Purple who made perfect ancestral material for the person she is.  This was lo...

                                                             Alice Walker  August 12, 2005 Karla Simcikova Mongolska 1427/14 70800 Ostrava –Poruba Czech Republic Dear Karla Simcikova: At first I thought your name was difficult to pronounce, because it was unfamiliar to me.  Now I see it is quite easy after I have carefully looked at it several times.  That is how it is, I think. Thank you so much for your fine book, for which you must feel no nervousness.  It is beautiful and explores my work in...

I have decided to publish thoughts, fragments, letters and other communications as they turn up on my computer, from years of offering what I have.  The only answer I have been able to offer for this activity is:  It is time. ~aw SUFFERING IS LIKE ANY OTHER SCHOOL, ONLY MORE PAINFUL AND RECESS RARELY COMES What is the meaning of suffering?  Is suffering of any use? What can be made of it?  Why should the oppressed be concerned? ©2011 by Alice Walker The Russell Tribunal on Palestine 2011, Cape T...

  Recently I Wrote a Letter ©2012 by Alice Walker Recently I wrote a letter to Yediot publishers in Israel declining an offer they’d made to publish my novel The Color Purple. Though the letter is self-explanatory there have been many erroneous and curious interpretations of it.  Many media outlets requested interviews, among them the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, and Fox news.  However, I have chosen to give one interview only. I accepted the invitation to be interviewed by an Israeli paper bec...

June   Who was Paule Marshall? A fierce, determined, daughter of immigrants from “the islands;” a writer of novels that explore worlds previously unknown, not even guessed at, by this Southerner. We met, truly, in China, where she shepherded our group of diverse women through days of excitement and wonder as we tried to fathom what transformation of a society might look like.  It was 1980 and, as I have elsewhere observed, every single Chinese woman we interacted with looked exhausted. The men j...

Happy Birthday, Robert Allen, May 29th.  Thank you for editing The Black Scholar all those years;  for helping to build housing in Cuba, and encouraging me to visit; for writing amazing books about capitalism and the slow growth of our comprehension about societal transformation.  Thank you for beginning to read and comprehend the suppression of women by falling in love with Janie Crawford.  Thank you for loving having a child. For loving to dance and for sharing a birthday with Malcolm X whom y...