a book

The Color Purple

Name: The Color Purple
Rating: 5 (14 reviews)
Author: Alice Walker
ISBN: 9780156028356

Alice Walker · 2019 · 288 pages

A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the National Book Award

Published to unprecedented acclaim,The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in modern fiction. This is the story of two sisters--one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South--who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.

"Intense emotional impact . . . Indelibly affecting . . . Alice Walker is a lavishly gifted writer." --New York Times Book Review

"Places Walker in the company of Faulkner." --The Nation

"Superb . . . A work to stand beside literature of any time and place." --San Francisco Chronicle

"A novel of permanent importance." -- Peter S. Prescott,Newsweek

recommended by 14 people

sourced from public statements

Hillary Clinton
“Alice Walker tackles some of American society’s most vexing issues—race, gender and violence—through a memorable protagonist named Celie. The story of her growing up as a victim of abuse and her ongoing journey of self-discovery is a brutally honest assessment of human nature at its best and worst.”↗
Shonda Rhimes
“It's #BookLoversDay. Here are some of my favorite books📚.”↗
Gloria Steinem
“Because she makes the invisible visible, and redeems people who seem irredeemable, she makes every reader feel visible and redeemable, too.”↗
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“I admired the fierce honesty in the single-mindedly feminist world-view of this book”↗
Kerry Washington
“It’s actually one of the first books I remember my mom reading…so when I finally read it for myself, it was really such a a joy to kind of step into adult readership and to step into being part of the community that could appreciate a book like that…what I love about the book is that it is about trauma, but it’s also about resilience, and about the power of love to create community and heal – the power to find sisterhood belonging with people.”↗
Gabrielle Union
“My favorite Alice Walker piece that tells the stories of black women in the South in the 1930s. If you’ve seen the movie, you will find the book to still be timely and relevant and painfully moving.”↗
Chimamanda Adichie
“I admired the fierce honesty in the single-mindedly feminist world-view of this book. It breaks many of the ‘rules’ of fiction. Walker comes close to painting all the men in a simplistic shade of ‘bad,’ although she attempts to give the nameless husband of Celie some redemption in the end. But the reader senses that a greater truth is at stake; that this was a story that needed to be told. I liked how Celie becomes strong with the love of Shug. And how Sofia is amazingly resilient but is punished for sassing the mayor, and later has to go and work for the mayor’s wife. I applauded Celie’s sexual awakening. And, most of all, I liked the idea that God gets angry if we walk past a field with the colour purple and don’t notice it.”↗
All 32 of Emma Watson
“I am trying to choose works that cover as much ground as possible and are diverse… I’ve heard amazing things about this book from a person that I trust… The musical is currently on Broadway (starring Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Hudson and Danielle Brooks) and a film was made of the book in 1985 by Steven Spielberg. It was Oprah Winfrey’s film debut and introduced Whoopi Goldberg (I love both of these women). I’m excited to read it and maybe do some watching too.”↗
Jess Brammar
“I’ve ploughed through books in last few months, using @BorrowBox or @audible to listen as I walk. Loved Queenie, Wolf Hall series, Line of Beauty, Beekeeper of Aleppo, The Color Purple, Between The World And Me. Didn’t love Overstory or Where Crawdads Sing but both decent”↗
Emma Watson
Janet Mock
Meghan Markle
Rupi Kaur
Robert Jones Jr.