The Color Purple

The Color Purple is a epistolary novel that Depicts the lives of two African American women, Celie and Nettie, separated as young girls in early twentieth-century rural Georgia prior to WWII and the civil rights movement. Both sisters sustain their loyalty and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence, Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other. Walker's novel draws readers into a vivid first person portrayal of black women, their pain, struggle, companionship, growth, resilience and bravery.

The Color Purple won both the Pulitzer Prize and National book awards for fiction in 1983. It is also frequently considered one of the 100 most influential books ever written. Sadly, the novel has also been the target of censors numerous times, and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. Like many challenged and banned works in the United States though, it stands in a category of it's own. Alice Walker's work is not only a major contribution to literature, it's a major contribution to humanity and the marginalized that exist within it.