I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

to the White House. After high school Walker went to Spelman College in Atlanta on a full scholarship in 1961 and later transferred to Sarah Lawrence College near New York City graduating in 1965. Walker and her husband divorced amicably in 1976.

Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9 1944) is an American author poet feminist and activist.