Gathering blossoms under fire : the journals of Alice Walker

This is a visual memoir of Alice Walker's remarkable life as a novelist, essayist, poet and activist in candid photographs, manuscript drafts - including handwritten drafts of The Color Purple - letters and other selections from the personal archive she started keeping when she was 14.

These records are framed by an intimate first-person narrative that will make readers feel as though they are having a cup of tea with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author as she shares - in her own unguarded, opinionated and singular voice - the story behind each letter, document and snapshot.

Escorting readers on a fascinating journey through five decades of American social history, this literary scrapbook captures important public and private moments from an illustrious and inimitable life.