The highly acclaimed first two novels by the Pulitzer Prizeβwinning author of The Color Purple and "a lavishly gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review).
The first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for The Color Purpleβwhich also won the National Book Award and was adapted into both an awardβwinning film starring Whoopi Goldberg and a Tony Awardβwinning Broadway musicalβNew York Timesβbestselling author Alice Walker is without question "one of [our] best American writers" (The Washington Post). Before her success with The Color Purple, Walked penned the two powerful and unforgettable novels collected here.
Meridian: This "classic novel of both feminism and the Civil Rights movement" is the story of Meridian Hill, who, as she approaches the end of her teen years, has already married, divorced, and given birth to a son (Ms. Magazine). She's looking for a second chance, and at a small college outside Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1960s, she becomes involved in the Civil Rights movement. So fully does the cause guide her life that she's willing to sacrifice virtually anything to help transform the conditions of a people whose subjugation she shares.
"Beautifully presented and utterly convincing." βThe New Yorker
"A fine, taut novel . . . Remarkable." βThe New York Times Book Review
The Third Life of Grange Copeland: In Walker's debut novel, Grange Copeland, a deeply conflicted and struggling tenant farmer in the Deep South of the 1930s, leaves his family and everything he's ever known to find happiness and respect in the cold cities of the North. This misadventure, his "second life," proves a dismal failure that sends him back where he came from to confront his now-grown-up son's disastrous relationships with his own family, including Grange's granddaughter, Ruth Copeland, a child Grange grows to love. Love becomes the substance of his third and final life. He spends it in devotion to Ruth, teaching and protecting herβthough the cost of doing so is almost more than he can bear.
"[A] splendid novel." βChicago Tribune
"A solid, honest sensitive tale . . . leavened by those moments of humor and warmth that have enabled men and women to endure so much tragedy." βChicago Daily News