Walker has grappled with some of the thorniest issues of 20th-century America. She’s also taken troubling stances. She has now opened up and shared her diaries, giving readers a window into her life.
Alice Walker is one of the most renowned — and complex — public figures of her generation.
Born to sharecroppers in rural Georgia and raised in homes without electricity or indoor plumbing, Walker became an activist and a prolific writer, with 41 books across genres. Her 1982 book, “The Color Purple” — an epistolary novel addressed largely to God, which focused on the experience of poor Black women in the American South — was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She was the first Black woman to win the prize for fiction.
In recent years, she has taken positions, including in The Times, that many have found to be antisemitic and deeply troubling. Her stances have cast a shadow over her legacy, leaving readers to grapple with how to approach Walker, and her work, today.
Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.
A version of this article appears in print on May 5, 2022, Section
C
, Page
1
of the New York edition
with the headline:
Living ‘the Way That I Want’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe