Abstract
Alice Walker was born in 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia, the eight and last child of a couple of sharecroppers. She went to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta. After spending two years there, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and during her junior year travelled to Africa as an exchange student. In 1965, she received her bachelor Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Alice Walker was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in the South and today, she is still as an involved activist. She has spoken for the women's movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement and against female genital mutilation (FGM). In 1983, she received the Pulitzer Prize for 'the Color Purple', the first book of a trilogy, also, 'The Temple of my familiar' (1989) and 'Possessing the Secret of Joy' (1992), which stayed for 17 weeks at the top of sales in the US. In 'the Color Purple', Celie was the most important character, a black woman, two times pregnant because of her stepfather, giving birth to a girl, Olivia and a boy, Adam, both of them were adopted by a couple of missionaries moving to the African continent. The main character of 'Possessing the secret of joy' is linked to these previous ones. Her name is Tashi and she belongs to the Olinka's tribe. She is Olivia's friend on the African continent and later, Adam's becomes wife.
