Alice Walker - The Color Purple

Review by Ro Bennett on show live 26th April, 2012
The Color Purple was written in 1982 by American author Alice Walker. It won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.

I don’t know why I haven’t read it before and can’t remember who suggested I buy the book now. And I wasn’t at all sure I would like it...

Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on female black life in the 1930s in the southern United States. It addresses a variety of issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. The novel has been the frequent target of censors. It was number seventeen on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009 because of its sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence. It certainly raised many controversial and troubling issues.

Written in letter form by a poor, uneducated black girl from the age of fourteen, it describes some deeply shocking events and the injustice and abuse made my blood boil. All the characters were well portrayed and my heart went out to Celie, her sister Nettie and friend Sophie. I found it a real page turner as I wanted to find out what was going to happen next and how it would all end.

However, despite describing the repercussions of raw brutality and ignorance it was also a novel about love, resilience and hope and so rather than being totally depressing and filling the reader with a sense of powerlessness and despair, it was also optimistic and uplifting.

Memorable and well worth reading.

I bought the DVD and that was excellent too. I could watch it again which is unusual for me.