Alice Walker

The author of short stories and novels, essays and poetry and activist for racial civil rights, women’s equality and peace among other causes, Alice Walker brought black women’s lives into primary focus as a rich and important subject for US American literature. Her landmark novel The Color Purple (1982), which drew upon her sharecropper family’s Southern roots, made Walker famous the world over and brought her the first Pulitzer Prize for fiction awarded to an African American woman, as well as the National Book Award. Walker’s introduction of the concept of “womanism” (1983) was an influential corrective to the focus on white women understood by many under the term “feminism;” it helped broaden the women’s movement to include women of color and appreciate their traditional cultural and creative roles. “Womanism is to feminism as purple is to lilac.” (Walker, 1983).

Upcoming Programs by Alice Walker

“I went to the Dr. Nida and Robert Thurman rejuvenating retreat. What a life changing experience. I feel so much better after just a week. The food is amazing, the spa is too good to be true. I love this hidden gem in the Catskills. I probably shouldn’t review this place—too many people might find out about it…”

Anonymous

“I loved every minute at Menla. It was as if heaven was delivered to me on earth–the people, the food, the services at the spa, even my walks to the meeting room were infused with magic. I was greeted with so much warmth and caring with every interaction.”

Janice Rous

“Menla is an oasis of tranquility amidst vast natural forest preserves… The area holds a very special aura and energy which you can’t help but be affected by…”

CJ Dellatore, Relevant Design

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