If you have enjoyed The Color Purple then you may find you take pleasure from Alice Walker’s follow-up entitled Possessing the Secret of Joy published in 1992. The novel continues Adam, Olivia and Tashi’s story, all of whom made brief appearances in the first book. The main issues raised revolve around Adam’s wife, Tashi’s decision to go through with the female initiation ceremony, as well as her sensitive relationship with Adam following this decision.

Other Alice Walker titles include:

By the Light of My Father’s Smile 1998
A family travels to the remote Sierras in Mexico – the writer-to-be, Susannah, her sister Magdalena; her father and mother – to study the endangered indigenous peoples. And there they embark upon an encounter that will change them more than they could ever dream. Moving back and forth in time, and among unforgettable characters, Alice Walker crosses conventional borders of all kinds as she explores in this magical novel the ways in which a woman’s denied sexuality leads to the loss of much-prized original self; and then how she regains that self, even as her family’s past of lies and love is transformed.

By the Light of My Father’s Smile [pictured] presents a celebration of sexuality and the powerful links between sexuality and spirituality. It explores sexuality as a celebration of life, of trust in Nature and the Spirit, even as it affirms the belief, as Alice Walker says, ‘that it is the triumphant heart, not the conquered heart, that forgives. And that love is both timeless and beyond time’.

Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult 1992
Alice Walker was a peaceful, reclusive poet and writer when her life was interrupted by the appearance of three extraordinary gifts: a widely praised, bestselling novel (The Color Purple), the Pulitizer Prize, and an offer from Steven Spielberg to make her novel into a film that would become a major, international event. The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult chronicles the period of transition from recluse to public figure, and invites us to contemplate, along with Alice Walker, the true significance of extraordinary gifts – especially when they are coupled, as in Walker’s case, with the most severe criticism, overt hostility, and public censure.

In this remarkable book, Alice Walker looks back at what was taking place in her life at that time: the onset of a debilitating illness, the failing health of her adored mother, and the betrayal by her companion of thirteen years. How do the private and the public mesh, she asks, during these periods of intense creativity and stress? In what ways do they support or weaken each other? The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult offers a rich opportunity to understand how an artist may operate in and engage the popular culture, and a candid look at some of the pleasures and the costs.

The Same River Twice also contains a remarkable insight into the filming of The Color Purple. Alice Walker details her initial reluctance to allow her novel to be filmed, her early meetings with Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones, her reasons for finally agreeing, the daily experience of being on set during the shooting, and watching the rushes in the evenings. She outlines the tremendous sense of excitement and achievement experienced by almost entirely black cast and crew; and shares her moments of great concern and anxiety when political misunderstandings and differences arose. Extraordinary letters and articles which detail the controversy the film caused in the black community are also included, as are Alice Walker’s personal journals and letters of the time, and her previously unpublished filmscript of The Color Purple, which was not used. The work of Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover is discussed. And for the very first time, Alice Walker reveals her own feelings about film version on The Color Purple.

Living by the Word: Selected Writings 1973-1987 1988
‘I set out on a journey to find my old planet: to gaze at its moon, to swim in its waters, to eat its fruits, to rediscover and admire its creatures. To purify myself in its wind and sun. To my inexpressible joy I found it still there, though battered as an unwanted dog.’

So Alice Walker describes the genesis of this reviving collection of essays and memoirs, letters, poems and reflections. She speaks directly to us, takes us into her life and her thinking . . . about the filming of The Color Purple, about sisterhood and black culture, about her indignation that the ‘Uncle Remus’ folk tales once told by black mothers to their children are now known round the world as the work of a white man; about a visit to China; about her daughter, who smokes.

In Search of our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose 1983
‘I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant, almost to the point of being invisible – except as Creator: hand and eye. She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty. Her face as she prepares the art that is her gift, is a legacy of respect she leaves to me, for all that illuminates and cherishes life. She has handed down respect for the possibilities – and the will to grasp them . . . Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength – in search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.’

In these superb essays, reviews and articles, Alice Walker brings her powerful, moving and poetic voice to the crucial subjects of art, politics and social change. They include her celebrated essay on Zora Neale Hurston; a retrospective view of the Civil Rights movement; a meditation on the ‘new Cuba’; and her final coming to terms with a childhood injury that nearly blinded her.

Once 1968
Once is Alice Walker’s first published volume of poetry. It contains poems about visiting Kenya and Uganda, bright and surprising images of a black America in Africa; powerful, often wry, accounts of the civil rights struggles in the American South; and exhilarating poems which light up the abiding themes of life, death and love.

Alice Walker’s poems are immediate and compelling, and all of them testify to her acute honesty and breadth of vision.

Compiled by Matthew Kane [2001]

Click here to return