Walker, Alice

Paths to Self-Knowledge

Walker's concern with female genital mutilation grew from her belief that such practices permanently damage women's sexuality, as well as affect women's overall physical and mental health. In 1993, Walker, in collaboration with Indian filmmaker Pratibha Parmar, developed a documentary film, Warrior Marks: Female Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women, about female genital mutilation. Walker does not limit herself to women's lives, however, as seen for example in The Third Life of Grange Copeland. There, Walker's story depicts the effects of poverty and race on a father and son, George and Brownfield Copeland, as the novel exposes the cycle of anger, violence, and loss created by a political and social system that opposes them.

Like her novels, Walker's prose and poetry center on self-exploration, strategies for survival, and paths to self-knowledge and empowerment with an intense interest in the struggles of African American women. Through her poetry, Walker explores a range of themes, including love, loss, and revolution. Her poetry is often confessional and delves into female consciousness as she integrates personal experiences and emotions into her work.

In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose, one of Walker's best-known essay collections, includes her famous essay of the same title that discusses the black woman writer and her journey to self-expression. Through that discussion, Walker presented her concept “womanist.” In Living by the Word, she broadens her concerns to include the environment and our connection to the land, as well as furthering her discussions of the effects of race, gender, and sexuality on people's lives.

Walker has long been active in the Civil Rights movement, ever since her years at Spelman College in the 1960s. Her activism resonates throughout her [Page 1536]writings as she examines the lives and experiences of African American men and women and their search for identity, self-worth, and survival in the face of economic and racial oppression. A prolific novelist, poet, and essayist known for her realism and accessible prose style, Alice Walker's writing is firmly planted in the American and African American literary canon. She has sold more than 10 million copies of her books, which speaks to her influence, and her writings have been translated into more than two dozen languages across the world.

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