Presents critical essays on Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" and includes a chronology, a bibliography, and an introduction by critic Harold Bloom.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-239) and index.

Introduction / Harold Bloom -- Race, gender, and nation in The color purple / Lauren Berlant -- Color me Zora: Alice Walker's (re) writing of the speakerly text / Henry Louis Gates Jr. -- Writing the subject: reading The color purple / bell hooks -- "Show me how to do like you": didacticism and the epistolary form in The color purple / Tamar Katz -- "Trying to do without God": the revision of epistolary address in The color purple / Carolyn Williams -- Romance, marginality, matrilineage: The color purple / Molly Hite -- With ears to hear and eyes to see: Alice Walker's parable The color purple / Diane Gabrielsen Scholl -- The color purple: a study of Walker's womanist gospel / Tuzyline Jita Allan -- Race and domesticity in The color purple / Linda Selzer -- Generational connections and Black women novelists - Iola Leroy and The color purple / Deborah E. McDowell -- "Somebody I can talk to": Teaching feminism through The color purple / Carla Kaplan -- Alice Walker's The color purple / Yvonne Johnson.