Novels That Shaped Our World | A Woman’s Place

Based on The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is another case in point - now seen as an icon of African-American women's writing, its reprinting was promoted by one of the most significant novelists of the last few decades, Alice Walker, author of the lacerating The Color Purple. The episode brings the discussion right up to date with a novel from 2019 by a black British writer and about a black British woman, Candice Carty-Williams' Queenie.

Access

Licence: ERA Licence required

Content

Type: Analysis
Channel: BBC Two
Duration: 59'18''
Broadcast date: 2019

Usage

UK only
Staff and students of licensed education establishments only
Cannot be adapted

Literary Resource

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Novels That Shaped Our World | A Woman's Place

2019 | 59'18''

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is another case in point - now seen as an icon of African-American women's ...

Novels That Shaped Our World | The Empire Writes Back

2019 | 59'13''

A look at how the novel has marched in lock step with the rise, decline and fall of the British Empire.

Novels That Shaped Our World | The Class Ceiling

2019 | 58'44''

This episode deals with class in all its shapes and sizes, from all sides of the class divide, in the UK, USA and India.

Other Archive resources

The Color Purple | BBC Radio 3 | 2014

The Essay | Malorie Blackman on The Color Purple

Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman on how Alice Walker's novel ''The Color Purple'' legitimised her need to be a writer. She writes how the novel was ''about the triumph of the human spirit''. Reading it for the first in her early 20s it ''blasted open a door which I thought was locked and barred to me. Actually it blasted open a door which I didn't appreciate even existed. A door that could lead to a writing career of my own... this book and its author showed that it was possible for me to not only be an author but to have my own voice.''

The Color Purple | BBC Radio 4 | 2013

Front Row | The Color Purple musical

Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning dramatist Marsha Norman discusses how she adapted Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple as a musical for the stage. The show is about to receive its British premiere.