“When I no longer have your heartI will not request your bodyyour presenceor even your polite conversation.I will go away to a far countryseparated from you by the sea— on which I cannot walk —and refrain even from sendinglettersdescribing my pain.”

American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for her novel The Color Purple. Her work spans novels, short stories, non-fiction, essays, and poetry. Walker is known for writing across these forms while also speaking from her role as an activist, with a career that has ranged widely across fiction and public life.