The Color Purple

Last edited by AgentSapphire

February 24, 2026 | History

The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.

The novel has been a frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most challenged books from 2000 to 2009 at number seventeen due to its sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence. In 2003, the book appeared in the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "most loved novels".

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Previews available in: English

Subjects

Fiction and Literature, Blacks, Social Life and Customs, Songs and Music, Lesbian Fiction, Epistolary Fiction, Fiction, African American Women, Sisters, Victims of Child Sexual Abuse, Battered Wives, Domestic Fiction, National Book Award Winner, award:national_book_award=1983, award:national_book_award=fiction, American Fiction, African American Authors, Social Conditions, open_syllabus_project, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Language Readers, Books that Shaped Work in America, type of publication of works of fiction, African Continental Ancestry Group, Romans, Noires américaines, reading level-grade 7, reading level-grade 9, reading level-grade 8, reading level-grade 11, reading level-grade 10, reading level-grade 12, 1000blackgirlbooks, American fiction (fictional works by an author), states of the south, fiction, sisters, fiction, African Americans, fiction, fiction, family life, fiction, general, fiction, African American, general, large print books, noires, romans, nouvelles, historical fiction, LGBTQ novels, fiction, African American and black, general, New York Times review, fiction, family life, general, vrouwenemancipatie, racism, Romans in novels; vertaald, American literature, Spanish translations, Spanish fiction, Spanish printing presses, Roman espagnol, Imprimés espagnols, lesbians, friendship, works of fiction [Type of publication]People

Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, Albert, God, Samuel, Corrine, Alphonso, Adam, Olivia, Harpo, Sofia, Squeak, Sheriff Hodges, Grady, Germaine, TashiPlaces

Southern States, United States, Georgia, Africa, TennesseeTimes

1930s. Showing 10 featured editions. See all 107 editions?

Book details

Editing notes

A pocket book.

The physical object

Edition identifiers

Job identifiers

Extracts

I am fourteen years old.

added anonymously.

You better never tell anyone but God.

added by Lisa.

first sentence