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Walker was born February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, a town where blacks still participated in tenant farming.<ref>https://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939</ref>  At age eight, her brother shot her in the eye with a BB gun, and her family had no car, so she did not see a doctor until a week later, and she became permanently blind in her right eye.<ref name="poet">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/alice-walker</ref>  She was embarrassed by this, and retreated into reading and writing, but her father, the first black man in the county to vote, insisted that she go to school, and she attended Spelman College.<ref name="fem">http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/alice-walker/</ref>  She also received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, where she developed an interest in civil rights.<ref>https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/alice-walker</ref>  She wrote the first of several volumes of poetry, ''Once'' (1968), about her experiences in the movement as well as her traumatic decision to abort a child.<ref>http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/alice-walker-b-1944</ref>  She wrote a few more volumes as well as a novel, ''Meridian'', about the coming of age of some civil rights workers before moving to California and writing her most famous novel, the epistolary ''The Color Purple'' (1982).<ref name="brit">"Walker, Alice." ''Encyclopedia Britannica Online''.</ref>  The novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.

Walker was born February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia, a town where blacks still participated in tenant farming.<ref>https://www.biography.com/people/alice-walker-9521939</ref>  At age eight, her brother shot her in the eye with a BB gun, and her family had no car, so she did not see a doctor until a week later, and she became permanently blind in her right eye.<ref name="poet">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/alice-walker</ref>  She was embarrassed by this, and retreated into reading and writing, but her father, the first black man in the county to vote, insisted that she go to school, and she attended Spelman College.<ref name="fem">http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/alice-walker/</ref>  She also received a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, where she developed an interest in civil rights.<ref>https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/alice-walker</ref>  She wrote the first of several volumes of poetry, ''Once'' (1968), about her experiences in the movement as well as her traumatic decision to abort a child.<ref>http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/alice-walker-b-1944</ref>  She wrote a few more volumes as well as a novel, ''Meridian'', about the coming of age of some civil rights workers before moving to California and writing her most famous novel, the epistolary ''The Color Purple'' (1982).<ref name="brit">"Walker, Alice." ''Encyclopedia Britannica Online''.</ref>  The novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for Fiction.

The next year, she published ''In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens:  Womanist Prose'' (1983), a collection of essays in which she proposed the womanist movement.<ref name="fem"></ref>  Her further novels include ''The Temple of My Familiar'' (1989), examining racial tensions, ''Possessing the Secret of Joy'' (1992), a graphically violent work concerning women mutilated, ''By the Light of My Father's Smile'' (1998), of anthropologists who discover a Native American tribe while under the guise of missionaries, and ''Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart'' (2005).<ref name="brit"></ref>  Some have criticized her works to be overly feminist, and claim they portray almost all black men as villains and all white people as stupid or cruel.<ref name="poet"></ref>

The next year, she published ''In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens:  Womanist Prose'' (1983), a collection of essays in which she proposed the womanist movement.<ref name="fem" />  Her further novels include ''The Temple of My Familiar'' (1989), examining racial tensions, ''Possessing the Secret of Joy'' (1992), a graphically violent work concerning women mutilated, ''By the Light of My Father's Smile'' (1998), of anthropologists who discover a Native American tribe while under the guise of missionaries, and ''Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart'' (2005).<ref name="brit" />  Some have criticized her works to be overly feminist, and claim they portray almost all black men as villains and all white people as stupid or cruel.<ref name="poet" />

===Awards===

===Awards===