“My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.”

Alice Walker is an American writer and activist of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She gained prominence for her novel *The Color Purple*, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 and became a landmark in Black women’s literature. Her work spans poetry, essays, and activism, particularly on issues of racial and gender justice.