The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Element	Value	Value Standard
dc.title	The Color Purple
dc.creator	Walker, Alice
dc.subject	Fiction – African-American, Fiction – Woman, Fiction – Bigotry, Fiction – incest, Fiction – sexual abuse, Fiction – abuse, Fiction – Africa, Fiction – Missionary, Fiction – Sisters, Fiction – South, Rural, Fiction – Purple
dc.description	An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie’s abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing “Mister” Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
dc.publisher	Mariner Books
dc.contributor	Alice Walker
dc.date	June 4, 1905
dc.type	Text
dc.format	Paperback, 300 pages,  5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
dc.identifier	860-1417533253	IBSN
dc.source	http://www.amazon.com/Color-Purple-Alice-Walker/dp/0156028352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462125592&sr=8-1&keywords=the+color+purple+book
dc.language	en-USA
dc.relation	The Color Purple by Alice Walker, originally published by Mariner Books, 1982
dc.rights	All Rights Reserved

The Color Purple by Alice Walker, published in 1982, is told in a series of letters.  It won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and The National Book Award for Fiction.The  story begins in the early 1900s in rural Georgia, and covers about 30 years.

The first two sentences in the book are, “You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy”.

Then begins fourteen-year-old Celie’s letters to God. She tells him she’s always been a good girl, and asks for a sign to let her know what is happening to her.

As she tells her story to God, we learn that she is raped repeatedly by the man she believes to be her father. She has had two babies by him, a girl and a boy.  Both babies were taken from her shortly after birth, and Celie believes that her her “Pa” killed the first one, and maybe sold the second one.

Celie’s mother asks who the father of the first one is. Celie tells her it’s God. Her mother dies before the second baby is born. Celie begins to worry about her younger sister, Nettie, when she sees Pa’s growing interest in her.  An older man with four children, whose wife is dead, wants to marry her, but Pa won’t hear of it. He offers Celie instead, and a cow to go along with her if the man will agree to take her.

It takes him a few months to make up his mind, but he finally decides he will take Celie. They marry, and she puts up with his bad treatment of her without complaint.

The Color Purple has plenty of critics. It’s often targeted by censors for its “troubling ideas about race relations”, “man’s relationship to God”, African history, human sexuality, extreme and graphic violence, offensive language, and “unsuited to age group”.

The Color Purple. Retrieved 01 May 2016 from http://www.favorite-banned-books.com/the-color-purple.html