Book Review: The World Has Changed: Conversations With Alice Walker

Today, I am sharing a beautiful book “The World Has Changed: Conversations With Alice Walker“. Alice Walker is an acclaimed American author, poet, feminist and activist, who won the Pulitzer Prize in Literature at the age of thirty-nine.

She is considered one of our most extraordinary living writers and known for her literary gifts, from her discussions of black identity and feminism to ruminations on suffering and joy.

Since her first short story, “To Hell with Dying,” which was “discovered” by the poet Langston Hughes in 1967 to The Color Purple and, more recently, her bestselling children’s book, “Why War Is Never a Good Idea,” Walker has inspired, critiqued, and pushed the limits of storytelling.

The World Has Changed: Conversations With Alice Walker

The book, The World Has Changed Conversations With Alice Walker features a series of fascinating conversations with her, offering an insight into her career and her personal and political development and includes compelling conversations between Walker and other significant literary and cultural figures, including Gloria Steinem, Howard Zinn, Pema Chodron, Claudia Tate, Margo Jefferson, William Ferris, Paula Giddings, and Amy Goodman.

It also has a chronology of her life and an succint biographical essay by scholar Rudolph P. Byrd discussing her work and its influences besides describing the writer through her personal stories: from her early family life in Georgia and the accident that caused her to lose vision in her right eye as an eight-year-old, to her marriage to civil rights attorney Mel Leventhal, including the text of a remarkable letter she wrote to her mother-in-law, who was deeply opposed to the interracial marriage of her son; from her years at Spelman and then Sarah Lawrence College, to her years as a teacher and being the first to teach a course on black women’s literature; and finally, from her time as an editor at Ms. Magazine to her continuing activist work and humanitarian views that permeate her work.

The book concludes with a final conversation with Byrd in which Walker reflects on the election of Barack Obama as president, on the books that have influenced her most, on her preoccupations as an artist, and – on raising chickens.

Alice Walker’s energy is tangible in the book and shows her as a fascinating and evolving personality. I found the book unusual because it gives an insight into her, as an individual through her conversations with other great personalities. I am a fan of biographies and think this one is exceptional. The interviews span from 1973-2009 – there are 19 in all. Alice Walker comes across as an honest, forthright and outspoken person who speaks with conviction. She is wise and inspiring. She candidly shares her experiences without reserve. I loved her grace, humility and authentic self.

It is a great book!

I am delighted to share one of Alice Walker’s poems from her book Hard Times Require Furious Dancing. The poem made me reflect and rejoice. Enjoy!

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED
By Alice Walker
from her book Hard Times Require Furious Dancing

The world has changed:
Wake up & smell
The possibility.

The world
has changed:
It did not

Change
without
your prayers
without
your faith
without
your determination
to
believe
in liberation
&
kindness;
without
your
dancing
through the years
that had
no
beat.

The world has changed:
It did not change
without
your
numbers
your
fierce
love
of self
&
cosmos
it did not
change
without
your
strength.

The world has
changed:
Wake up!
Give yourself
the gift
of a new
day.

The world has changed:
This does not mean
you were never
hurt.

The world
has changed:
Rise!
Yes
&
shine!
Resist the siren
call
of
disbelief.

The world has changed:
Don’t let
yourself
remain
asleep
to it.

And now, some inspiring quotes by Alice Walker

Here is one of my very favorites!