Alice Walker

by Maria Lauret

Overview

"Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, is one of America's major and most prolific writers. She is also among its most controversial. How has Walker's work developed over the last forty years? Why has it often provoked extreme reactions? Does Walker's cultural, political and spiritual activism enhance or distort her fiction? Where does she belong in the evolving tradition of African American literature? Alice Walker, second edition: * examines the full range of Walker's prose writings: her novels, short stories, essays, activist writings, speeches and memoirs * has been thoroughly revised in the light of the latest scholarship and critical developments * brings coverage of Walker's work right up to date with a new chapter on Now is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004), and discussion of her recent non-fictional writing, including Overcoming Speechlessness (2010) *_traces Walker's_lineage back to_nineteenth-century visionary black women preachers and activists * assesses Walkers prose oeuvre both in terms of its literary and its activist merits and shortcomings. Ideal for students and scholars alike, this established text remains an essential guide to the work of a key US author_as it explains_her unique place in contemporary American letters"--

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230575882
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/15/2017
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2011
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

MARIA LAURET is Reader in American Studies at the University of Sussex, UK, where she teaches American literature.
MARIA LAURET is Reader in American Studies at the University of Sussex, UK, where she teaches American literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Foreword to the Second Edition: Alice Walker Ten Years Later
Alice Walker's Life and Work: An Introduction
The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970)
Meridian (1976)
The Color Purple (1982)
The Temple of My Familiar (1989)
Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992)
By the Light of My Father's Smile (1998) and Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004)
A Writer's Activism and its Critics: An Epilogue
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

In this second edition, Lauret offers a fuller, richer, more compelling, updated text that showcases the impressive range and depth of her investigations into Walker scholarship.' – Loretta Woodard, Marygrove College, USA

Editorial Reviews

Lauret (American studies, U. of Sussex) explains African-American writer Walker's project as a womanist writer and as a cultural and political activist who increasingly styles herself as a visionary for the new age. She traces her distinctive themes of child abuse and women's sexuality and discusses her theories of racial hybridity, spirituality, and goddess worship. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"In this second edition, Lauret offers a fuller, richer, more compelling, updated text that showcases the impressive range and depth of her investigations into Walker scholarship." -- Loretta Woodard, Marygrove College

From the Publisher