Alice Walker

Alice Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an acclaimed American novelist, poet, short story writer, and activist, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel *The Color Purple* (1982), the first by an African American woman, which explores the life of a Southern Black woman amid abuse and self-realization. Born to sharecropper parents in Eatonton, Georgia, she overcame childhood blindness in one eye and segregation to graduate as valedictorian and from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965. A key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, she coined 'womanism' to advocate for women of color and has authored numerous works addressing race, gender, and social justice.