Published in 2010
368 pages
Alice Walker, one of the United States’ preeminent writers, is an award-winning author of novels, stories, essays, and poetry. In 1983, Walker became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award. Her other books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy. In her public life, Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.
What is this book about?
The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker includes compelling conversations between acclaimed writer Walker and other significant literary and cultural figures, including Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, Pema Chodron, Claudia Tate, Margo Jefferson, William Ferris, Paula Giddings, and Amy Goodman. Each conversation represents a different stage in Walker’s artistic and spiritual development; taken together, they offer an unprecedented angle of vision on her career as well as on her personal and political development. Noted literary scholar Rudolph Byrd sets Walker’s work into context with an introductory essay, as well as with a comprehensive annotated bibliography of her writings.
Includes Alice Walker in conversation with the following:
John O’Brien (1973) on her early writing career and inspirations
Claudia Tate (1983) on being part of the emerging coterie of black women writers in the 1970s
Ellen Bring (1988) on her animal rights activism and its importance to her world view and writing
Claudia Dreifus(1989) on politics and fiction writing
Paula Giddings (1992) in Essence
Jody Hoy (1994) on her personal philosophy
Tammy Simon from Sounds True Recordings (1995)
Evelyn White from Ms. (1998)
Pema Chodron (1998) on the importance of Buddhisim to her work and writing
William R. Ferris (2004) on being a black female writer from the South
Margo Jefferson A Conversation from LIVE FROM THE NYPL (2005) on her success with The Color Purple and being a celebrity
Amy Goodman (March 2006) on her politics and activism
George Galloway (November 2006) on why she supports Castro
Marrianne Schnall from feminist.com (December 2006)
Howard Zinn on her Mississippi years, experiences with Zinn as a student, role of the civil rights movement in her work.
