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The Colour Purple Book

Object

Book

Object number

2025.20

Physical Description

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker. The cover depicts an illustration of a silhouette of a woman sitting on a rocking chair, reading a letter, in front of a window with the sun in the background. The cover is primarily purple and orange. The Women's Press Fiction logo is on the bottom right corner.

Object history

The Colour Purple is a 1982 novel by Alice Walker. The book is set in the early 1900s, Georgia, United States, and follows Celie, a young Black girl born into poverty and segregation.

The book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1983 making Walker the first Black woman to win for fiction. Despite great critical acclaim, the book has been banned various times in the United States for sexual explicitness, language, violence, and homosexuality.

This edition was published by The Women's Press, Ltd. 124 Shoreditch High Street, London E1

Associated Organisation

The Women's Press (Publisher)

Associated Person

Walker, Alice (Created by)

Material

Paper

Dimension

Height: 260mm
Width: 134mm
Depth: 28mm

On display?

No

Inscription

Now a major film

The Colour Purple
Alice Walker

The Women's Press Fiction
Missing image