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In Meridian, Alice Walker wrote the classic novel of the civil rights movement. Her new novel goes back to the period between the World Wars. It tells the story of two sisters: one a missionary in Africa and the other a child-wife living in the South, who sustain their loyalty and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence, in one of the most unusual and moving exchanges in fiction.
The principal voice is that of Celie, who has been raped by the man she believes to be her father, robbed of her two children, and married off to a man she hates. Her sister, Nettie,e escapes the same fate and is befriended by missionaries, man and wife, who have unwittingly adopted Celie's children. Separated for thirty years, the sisters live in ignorance of each other's circumstances. Nettie's letters do not reach Celie; and so great is Celie's sense of shame that she can write only to God. But life for Celie begins to change color when her husband's lover, a remarkable woman named Shug Avery, comes to live with them.
Honest, poignant, laughing, defiant, The Color Purple is a story about heroic lives, love, and the nature of God, and it breaks new ground in fiction with its portrayal of the bonding of women.
(front flap)
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Subjects
Fiction & Literature, Blacks, social life and customs, songs and music, Lesbian fiction, Epistolary fiction, Fiction, African American women, Sisters, Adult child sexual abuse victims, Abused wives, Domestic fiction, National Book Award Winner, award:national_book_award=1983, award:national_book_award=fiction, American fiction, African American authors, Social conditions, open_syllabus_project, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Language readers, Books that Shaped Work in America, Fictional Works Publication Type, African Continental Ancestry Group, Romans, Noires américaines, Reading Level-Grade 7, Reading Level-Grade 9, Reading Level-Grade 8, Reading Level-Grade 11, Reading Level-Grade 10, Reading Level-Grade 12, 1000blackgirlbooks, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Southern states, fiction, Sisters, fiction, African americans, fiction, Fiction, family life, Fiction, general, Fiction, african american, general, Large type books, Noires, Romans, nouvelles, Historical fiction, LGBTQ novels, Fiction, african american & black, general, New York Times reviewed, Fiction, family life, general, Vrouwenemancipatie, Racisme, Romans en novellen ; vertaald, American literature, Translations into Spanish, Spanish fiction, Spanish imprints, Roman espagnol, Imprimés espagnols, Lesbians, FriendshipPeople
Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, Albert, God, Samuel, Corrine, Alphonso, Adam, Olivia, Harpo, Sofia, Squeak, Sheriff Hodges, Grady, Germaine, TashiPlaces
Southern States, United States, Georgia, Africa, TennesseeTimes
1930sShowing 11 featured editions. View all 83 editions?
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The Color Purple
2004?, Harcourt
Mass Market Paperback
in English
- First Harvest edition (11)
0156031825 9780156031820
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04
De kleur paars
1987-08, Muntinga
Mass Market Paperback
in Dutch
- zevende druk; movie tie-in
9067660299 9789067660297
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05
The Color Purple
1985 12, Pocket Books
Mass Market Paperback
in English
- Movie Tie-In Edition; 1st Pocket Books mass-market printing (11)
0671617028 9780671617028
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06
The Color Purple
1985 12, Pocket Books
Mass Market Paperback
in English
- Movie Tie-In Edition; 1st Pocket Books printing (34)
0671727796 9780671727796
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08
The Color Purple
1983-06, Washington Square Press
Paperback
in English
- First Washington Square Press printing (33)
0671668781 9780671668785
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09
The Color Purple
1983 06, Washington Square Press
Paperback
in English
- 1st Washington Square Press printing (1)
0671458531 9780671458539
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10
The Color Purple: A Novel
1982, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Hardcover
in English
0151191530 9780151191536
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11
The Color Purple
1982, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Hardcover
in English
- printing (I)
0151191530 9780151191536
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Book Details
Published in
New York, USA
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The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.
The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009 at number seventeenth because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence. In 2003, the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novels."
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- Created April 1, 2008
- 24 revisions
September 20, 2022 | Edited by AgentSapphire | move to correct work |
September 20, 2022 | Edited by AgentSapphire | merge authors |
October 9, 2021 | Edited by lisaBot | moving edition(s) to primary work |
March 17, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from Scriblio MARC record. |