Alice Walker

Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an African American author whose most famous novel, The Color Purple, won both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award.

Controversy

In the updated 1995 Introduction to his novel Oxherding Tale Charles Johnson engendered a political firestorm when he seemed to criticize Walker's The Color Purple for its negative portrayal of African-American males. Quoth Johnson: "I leave it to readers to decide which book pushes harder at the boundaries of convention, and inhabits most confidently the space where fiction and philosophy meet." Such candor and criticism came as a shock to some in Academia, who felt Johnson violated an unspoken taboo against criticizing another writer of color. The novel had come under criticism for the same reasons earlier.

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