Alice Malsenior TallulahKate Walker is an American novelist short story writer poet and social activist In 1982 she became the first AfricanAmerican woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction which she was awarded for her novel The Color Purple The book became a bestseller and was subsequently adapted into a critically acclaimed 1985 movie directed by Steven Spielberg featuring Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg as well as a 2005 Broadway musical totaling 910 performances Over the span of her career Walker has published seventeen novels and short story collections twelve nonfiction works and collections of essays and poetry