For the color, see Purple.

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.[1] [a] It was later adapted into a film and musical of the same name.

Taking place mostly in rural Georgia, the story focuses on the life of African-American women in the southern United States in the 1930s, addressing numerous issues including their exceedingly low position in American social culture. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence.[2] [3] In 2003 the book was listed on the BBCs The Big Read poll of the UKs best-loved novels.[4]

Celie is a poor, uneducated, 14-year-old girl living in the American South in the 1930s. She writes letters to God because her father, Alphonso, beats her harshly and rapes her continuously. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once, a pregnancy that resulted in the birth of a boy she called Adam. Alphonso takes the baby away shortly after his birth. Celie has a second child, a girl she called Olivia whom Alphonso also abducts. Celies ailing mother dies after cursing Celie on her deathbed.

Celie and her younger sister, 12-year-old Nettie, learn that a man identified only as Mister wants to marry Nettie. Alphonso refuses to let Nettie marry, instead arranging for Mister to marry Celie. Mister, needing someone to care for his children and keep his house, eventually accepts the offer. Mister and his children, whose mother was murdered by a jealous lover, all treat Celie badly. However, she eventually gets Misters squalid living conditions and incorrigible children under control.

Shortly thereafter, Nettie runs away from Alphonso and takes refuge at Celies house, where Mister makes sexual advances toward her. Celie