In 1983, Alice Walker's The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, as well as the National Book Award. The novel, which is comprised of fictional letters and diary entries, tells the story of Celie, an African-American girl growing up in 1930s Georgia. Throughout her childhood, Celie is verbally abused by her mentally ill mother, as well as beaten and raped by her father, which results in the birth of two children. Leaving her younger sister and home behind, Celie is married off at the young age of 14. In her new environment, Celie encounters black men and women who defy expectations and create their own roles, differing from the ones that society has placed them in. Now questioning everything that she's ever known, Celie struggles to let go of the past and embrace the possibility of a better future. The bestseller — which was adapted into an 11-time Academy Award nominated film, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, and Danny Glover — features commentary on sisterhood and female relationships, racism, sexism, domestic abuse, sexual assault, religion, and more.
