SOURCE: “Alice Walker: An Interview,” in Alice Walker: Critical Perpectives, Past and Present, edited by Henry Louis Gate, Jr. and K. A. Appiah, 1993, pp. 326-46.

In the following interview, Walker discusses her background, her writing, and her major literary influences.

Alice Walker's first collection of poems, Once, was published when she was only twenty-four. Her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, appeared two years later. Her second collection of poems, Revolutionary Petunias, is due in 1973, and a collection of short stories will be published either in late 1973 or early 1974. All of this suggests how productive Alice Walker has been in so short a time. Along the way she has also managed to publish essays, teach, and raise a family. Yet the most amazing thing is less the ambition she has demonstrated than the maturity she has achieved so early.

The thematic scope of her poetry is...