Academic Paper from the year 2021 in the subject American Studies - Literature, Andhra University (Department of English, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam), language: English, abstract: Alice Walker’s 1998 novel "By the Light of My Father’s Smile" as a womanist treatise invites attention, as it showcases the modern black woman who heralds in positive changes, develops womanist consciousness, and emerges as a whole woman despite oppressive racism, sexism and classism, that plague her in both their overt and covert forms. The text is a celebration of womanist consciousness that alleviates the condition of black women from victims to victors. It is a celebration of black womanhood, and female sexuality. This paper primarily focuses on womanism as a theory and the need to inculcate womanist consciousness to overcome the tripartite struggle faced by black women. The novel chiefly revolves around the lives of four women characters namely Susannah, Magdalena, Pauline and Irene to showcase the lives of African American and coloured women who develop womanist awareness with grit and determination to overcome oppression and marginalization. This paper specifically concentrates on the role model womanist of the novel Susannah, who emerges as a successful woman despite decapitating constrains. The novel showcases that womanism as a theory when put into practice in a pragmatic way offers many solutions to the tripartite struggle faced by black women.

A theory formulated by Alice Walker, womanism focuses on the unification of men and women with Nature and Earth. This book explores womanism with regards to its specific concerns with African American women’s rights, identities, and self-actualisation, and points towards its more overarching concerns with human relations and sexual freedom, as expressed in each of Walker’s seven novels. Although Walker introduced the term “womanism” in 1983, this book traces the development of the concept across her canon of fictional works. By analysing the novels written in the 1970s, this book establishes how the term came to be coined, and demonstrates how womanism went on to be further developed and complexly wrought throughout Walker’s literary career.

The Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning novel is now a new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino. A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by the society around her and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband. In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters directly to God. The letters, spanning 20 years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women. She meets Shug Avery, her husband’s mistress and a jazz singer with a zest for life, and her stepson’s wife, Sofia, who challenges her to fight for independence. And though the many letters from Celie’s sister are hidden by her husband, Nettie’s unwavering support will prove to be the most breathtaking of all. The Color Purple has sold more than five million copies, inspired an Academy Award-nominated film starring Oprah Winfrey and directed by Steven Spielberg, and been adapted into a Tony-winning Broadway musical. Lauded as a literary masterpiece, this is the groundbreaking novel that placed Walker “in the company of Faulkner” (The Nation), and remains a wrenching—yet intensely uplifting—experience for new generations of readers. This ebook features a new introduction written by the author on the 25th anniversary of publication, and an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author’s personal collection. The Color Purple is the 1st book in the Color Purple Collection, which also includes The Temple of My Familiar and Possessing the Secret of Joy.

"These are the stories that came to me to be told after the close of a magical marriage to an extraordinary man that ended in a less-than-magical divorce. I found myself unmoored, unmated, ungrounded in a way that challenged everything I'd ever thought about human relationships. Situated squarely in that terrifying paradise called freedom, precipitously out on so many emotional limbs, it was as if I had been born; and in fact I was being reborn as the woman I was to become." So says Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker about her beautiful new book, in which "one of the best American writers today" (The Washington Post) gives us superb stories based on rich truths from her own experience. Imbued with Walker's wise philosophy and understanding of people, the spirit, sex and love, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart begins with a lyrical, autobiographical story of a marriage set in the violent and volatile Deep South during the early years of the civil rights movement. Walker goes on to imagine stories that grew out of the life following that marriage—a life, she writes, that was "marked by deep sea-changes and transitions." These provocative stories showcase Walker's hard-won knowledge of love of many kinds and of the relationships that shape our lives, as well as her infectious sense of humor and joy. Filled with wonder at the power of the life force and of the capacity of human beings to move through love and loss and healing to love again, The Way Forward Is with a Broken Heart is an enriching, passionate book by "a lavishly gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review).

In Anything We Love Can Be Saved, Alice Walker writes about her life as an activist, in a book rich in the belief that the world is saveable, if only we will act. Speaking from her heart on a wide range of topics--religion and the spirit, feminism and race, families and identity, politics and social change--Walker begins with a moving autobiographical essay in which she describes her own spiritual growth and roots in activism. She goes on to explore many important private and public issues: being a daughter and raising one, dreadlocks, banned books, civil rights, and gender communication. She writes about Zora Neale Hurston and Salman Rushdie and offers advice to Bill Clinton. Here is a wise woman's thoughts as she interacts with the world today, and an important portrait of an activist writer's life. NOTE: This edition does not include photographs.

A New York Times bestseller in hardcover, Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker’s We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For was called “stunningly insightful” and “a book that will inspire hope” by Publishers Weekly. Drawing equally on Walker’s spiritual grounding and her progressive political convictions, each chapter concludes with a recommended meditation to teach us patience, compassion, and forgiveness. We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For takes on some of the greatest challenges of our times and in it Walker encourages readers to take faith in the fact that, despite the daunting predicaments we find ourselves in, we are uniquely prepared to create positive change. The hardcover edition of We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For included a national tour that saw standing-room–only crowds and standing ovations. Walker’s clear vision and calm meditative voice—truly “a light in darkness”—has struck a deep chord among a large and devoted readership.

The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel presents new essays covering the one hundred and fifty year history of the African American novel. Experts in the field from the US and Europe address some of the major issues in the genre: passing, the Protest novel, the Blues novel, and womanism among others. The essays are full of fresh insights for students into the symbolic, aesthetic, and political function of canonical and non-canonical fiction. Chapters examine works by Ralph Ellison, Leon Forrest, Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman, and many others. They reflect a range of critical methods intended to prompt new and experienced readers to consider the African American novel as a cultural and literary act of extraordinary significance. This volume, including a chronology and guide to further reading, is an important resource for students and teachers alike.