In Search for the Color Purple

Mixing cultural criticism, literary history, biography, and memoir, an exploration of Alice Walkers critically acclaimed and controversial novel,The Color Purple

Alice Walker made history in 1983 when she became the rst Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award forThe Color Purple. Published in the Reagan era amid a severe backlash to civil rights, the Jazz Age novel tells the story of racial and gender inequality through the life of a 14-year-old girl from Georgia who is haunted by domestic and sexual violence.

Prominent academic and activist Salamishah Tillet combines cultural criticism, history, and memoir to explore Walkers epistolary novel and shows how it has inuenced and been informed by the zeitgeist.The Color Purplereceived both praise and criticism upon publication, and the conversation it sparked around race and gender still continues today. It has been adapted for an Oscar-nominated lm and a hit Broadway musical.

Through archival research and interviews with Walker, Oprah Winfrey, and Quincy Jones (among others), Tillet studies Walkers life and how themes of violence emerged in her earlier work. ReadingThe Color Purpleat age 15 was a groundbreaking experience for Tillet. It continues to resonate with heras a sexual violence survivor, as a teacher of the novel, and as an accomplished academic.

Provocative and personal,In Search of The Color Purpleis a bold work from an important public intellectual, and captures Alice Walkers seminal role in rethinking sexuality, intersectional feminism, and racial and gender politics.

• Publisher:Harry N. Abrams (January 12, 2021)
• Language:English
• Hardcover:256 pages
• ISBN-10:1419735306
• ISBN-13:9781419735301
• Item Weight:11.2 ounces
• Dimensions:5.8 x 1.05 x 8.55 inches