Alice Walker (9.2.1944)
Alice Walker is an American author and poet best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Color Purple and her strong human rights campaigning around the world.

Net Worth: According to an article by The Richest in 2010, Alice Walker has a Net Worth of 300 million USD.

Childhood: Alice Walker was born in Putnam County, Georgia with seven older siblings. Her father, Willie Lee Walker was a sharecropper and dairy farmer and earned only 300 USD (now 4,000 USD) a year, while her mother, Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant, worked as a maid to pay for Alice's college education. While growing up in an area that believed black children should work rather than get an education, Walker began writing at the age of eight as a form of escapism. Around this time, Walker was shot in the right eye by one of her brothers with a BB Gun. She told her parents that it had been an accident, although this was not true. She ended up losing sight entirely in that eye due to her not receiving immediate medical attention. The injury caused her to see people truly for what they were, leading to a surge in her popularity during school. She received a full scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta in 1961 although she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College before graduating in 1965.

Career: While studying at Sarah Lawrence, Alice Walker wrote her first book of poetry. After graduating, she worked as a writer in residence in Jackson State College and later Tougaloo College, before working for Ms. magazine as an editor. In 1970, Walker's first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland was published. This was followed by Meridian in 1976, and her best known novel The Color Purple in 1982. Two years after the release of her National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Walker opened her own feminist publishing company, Wild Tree Press, with Robert L. Allen in Anderson Valley, California.

Personal life: Alice Walker married Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal on the 17th March, 1967. When the couple moved to Jackson, Mississippi, they were harassed by white people in the area due to being the first legally married interracial couple in the state. Two years after their marriage, the couple had a daughter, Rebecca, yet in 1976 they got a divorce. Walker continues to write, while also working as a strong human rights activist.



Biography by Contactmusic.com