New Releases by Alice Walker

In 2006, Alice Walker, working with Women for Women International, visited Rwanda and the eastern Congo to witness the aftermath of the genocide in Kigali. Invited by Code Pink, an antiwar group working to end the Iraq War, Walker traveled to Palestine/Israel three years later to view the devastation on the Gaza Strip. Here is her testimony. Bearing witness to the depravity and cruelty, she presents the stories of the individuals who crossed her path and shared their tales of suffering and courage. Part of what has happened to human beings over the last century, she believes, is that we have been rendered speechless by unusually barbaric behavior that devalues human life. We have no words to describe what we witness. Self-imposed silence has slowed our response to the plight of those who most need us, often women and children, but also men of conscience who resist evil but are outnumbered by those around them who have fallen victim to a belief in weapons, male or ethnic dominance, and greed.

In this exquisite book, Alice Walker’s first new collection of poetry since 1991, are poems that reaffirm her as “one of the best American writers of today” (The Washington Post). The forces of nature and the strength of the human spirit inspire the poems in Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth. Alice Walker opens us to feeling and understanding, with poems that cover a broad spectrum of emotions. With profound artistry, Walker searches for, discovers, and declares the fundamental beauty of existence, as she explores what it means to experience life fully, to learn from it, and to grow both as an individual and as part of a greater spiritual community. About Walker’s Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, America said, “In the tradition of Whitman, Walker sings, celebrates and agonizes over the ordinary vicissitudes that link and separate all of humankind,” and the same can be said about this astonishing new collection, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth.

Colorful illustrations and simple rhyming text describes the destructiveness and hopelessness of war and how it destroys people and beauty.

'' I am the woman offering two flowers whose roots are twin. Justice and Hope Hope and Justice Let us begin'' Alice Walker has been writing poetry since the summer of 1965, when she travelled to East Africa and began the collection ONCE while sitting beneath a tree facing Mount Kenya. Encompassing the collections ONCE, REVOLUTIONARY PETUNIAS & OTHER POEMS, GOOD NIGHT WILLIE LEE I''LL SEE YOU IN THE MORNING, and HORSES MAKE A LANDSCAPE LOOK MORE BEAUTIFUL as well as other poems, this is a wonderful, surprising, entertaining collection that offers a historical perspective on the evolution of both the poetry itself and the political and spiritual inspiration behind it.

Walker''s essays and articles written between 1966 and 1982 discuss the concept and influence of art and the artist''s life, criticisms of authors such as Jean Toomer and Zora Neale Hurston, studies in the civil rights movement and feminist movement, and her own ideas while writing her book "The Color Purple."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple, Possessing the Secret of Joy, and The Temple of My Familiar now gives us a beautiful new novel that is at once a deeply moving personal story and a powerful spiritual journey. In Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart, Alice Walker has created a work that ranks among her ?nest achievements: the story of a woman''s spiritual adventure that becomes a passage through time, a quest for self, and a collision with love. Kate has always been a wanderer. A well-published author, married many times, she has lived a life rich with explorations of the natural world and the human soul. Now, at fifty-seven, she leaves her lover, Yolo, to embark on a new excursion, one that begins on the Colorado River, proceeds through the past, and flows, inexorably, into the future. As Yolo begins his own parallel voyage, Kate encounters celibates and lovers, shamans and snakes, memories of family disaster and marital discord, and emerges at a place where nothing remains but love. Told with the accessible style and deep feeling that are its author''s hallmarks, Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart is Alice Walker''s most surprising achievement.

For many years, Alice Walker has been known for her outspoken positions against racism, sexism, and colonialism. Now, she takes her crusade into the midst of her fiction, as her protagonist (greatly resembling herself) sheds the burdens and blessings of her past to come to terms with an actuality heightened by the transcendental images of magical realism. To be purified, she must go down two rivers. First, there''s the Colorado, where she takes an all-female white-water rafting trip which makes her decide to pursue celibacy. Then, there''s the Amazon, where she purges her past using yage, a hallucinogenic herb which brings her closer to the World-Grandmother-Spirit. At last, she reaches a place of love and wholeness.

Set in the period between the world wars, this novel tells of two sisters, their trials, and their survival.

In this illuminating book, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist and acclaimed poet Alice Walker reveals her remarkable philosophy of life. Curiously, this labor of love started with the author’s signature: Faced with the daunting task of providing autographs for multiple copies of one of her poetry collections, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth, Walker turned an act of repetition into an act of inspiration. For each autograph became something more than a name: a thoughtful reflection, an impromptu sketch, a heartfelt poem. The result is this spontaneous burst of the unexpected. A Poem Traveled Down My Arm is a lovely collection of insights and drawings—by turns charming and humorous, provocative and profound—that represent the wisdom of one of today’s most beloved writers. The essence of Walker’s independent spirit emanates from words and images that are simple but deep in meaning. An empowering approach to life...the inspiration to live completely in the moment...the chance to nurture one’s creativity and peace of mind—all these beautiful elements are evoked by this unusual and original book.

Walker brings a woman''s wisdom to bear on love, life''s unavoidable tragedies, blacks'' struggle for equality and justice, and a world committing eco-suicide.

Gleaned from her experiences as a child and young adult in America''s Deep South and her life as an activist, lover, mother and teacher, this collection showcases three decades of the work from one of the most gifted writers of our time.

In the early eightiesm three extraordinary events interrupted Alice Walker''s peaceful, reclusive life--the publication of the bestselling novel The Color Purple, the Pulitzer Prize, and an offer from Spielberg to make her novel into a film. This book chronicles that period of transition from recluse to public figure, and invites us to contemplate, along with her, the true significance of unanticipated gifts.

In her bestselling novel Possessing the Secret of Joy, Walker opened the door to a long-hidden secret by bringing female genital multilation to prominence. This book--based on Parmer''s extraordinary film--chronicles the authors'' journey together, from California to England to Africa, to interview the people concerned with and affected by this harmful, sometimes deadly process. 40 photos.

Presents the text of Alice Walker''s story "Everyday Use"; contains background essays that provide insight into the story; and features a selection of critical response. Includes a chronology and an interview with the author.

A provocative novel about an African tribal woman''s battle with madness after the trauma of a childhood genital mutilation. --Publisher.

For the adult new reader, selections from the novel of African-American lives.

In this story Alice Walker teaches that our love for family and friiends brings us the most powerful peace and happiness of all.

The author relates how old Mr. Sweet, though often on the verge of dying, could always be revived by the loving attention that she and her brother gave him.

In meditative and passionate prose, these provocative essays explore feminist, environmental, and political issues and shed new light on racial debates, including the controversy surrounding Walker''s bestseller, The Color Purple.

Fourteen short stories by the Pulitzer Prize winning author about strong women--their struggles and joys.

From the days she banged her rattle in the crib, Violet has been looking for friends to share her love of music.

A biography of the American poet whose works articulated the despair of blacks over social and economic conditions.

These poems are about revolutionaries and lovers-about how, both in revolution and in love, loss of trust and compassion robs us of hope. They are also about (and for) those few embattled souls who remain painfully committed to beauty and to love even while facing the firing squad. "Quick, direct, witty, pungent" (DeWitt Beall, Chicago Daily News).